“I could use a drink,” he heard Catherine say. “Lori, Penetta, please go to the cellar and find some wine. I’m sure there’s a reserve here somewhere.”
Two pairs of feet shuffled away, and Matthew slowly brought his eyes to his wife. Catherine seemed to be relishing the moment. Her dress, a stately violet number edged with yellow gems, wasn’t rumpled in the slightest.
“This…this was your doing,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Of course.”
“You knew what would happen.”
She nodded. “A message came from Riverrun two weeks ago. The Conningtons were given similar demands, and they handed over half their guard and a large number of their Sisters, just as the Garlands and Mudrakers had already done.” She shrugged. “I had Moira prepare as many women as she could. Had you not been busy murdering those poor people who delivered the Gemcroft woman’s child, you would have known.”
“But you…you hid the message from me!” he exclaimed. “You should have told me, Catherine. This is my business! Do you know what you just did? We will be considered blasphemers, enemies of the kingdom! When Karak returns, he will have all our heads! And should any more soldiers arrive at our gates…”
“Matthew, my dear, I thought you took measures so that Karak would not return. And besides, there are no more soldiers in Neldar. These were the last. The rest are all…occupied elsewhere.” Her grin turned into a sly smile.
“How can you be so smug? How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve learned from the best,” she answered.
The door swung open then, admitting the deafening clamor of the battle. Bren entered, lugging a groaning soldier behind him. The man’s arm had been severed just below the elbow, the jagged stump spurting blood.
“What are you doing?” Matthew shouted. “Get that man out of here, or at least put him out of his misery.”
“Can’t,” said Bren.
“Why in the name of the gods not?”
“Because this is the murderer,” said Catherine.
“Murderer of who?”
Bren answered without words, driving the soldier’s sword into Matthew’s gut. Pain exploded throughout his body, followed by a strange weakening sensation as blood began to flow out of the mortal wound. Bren released the sword’s handle and Matthew fell backward, landing on his rump. The tip of the sword, which had exited his lower back, clanked on the slatted wooden floor.
He gawked at the handle, at all the blood, and then back up at Bren.
“Why?” he was able to croak out. His throat felt as if something were lodged into it.
Bren cast his eyes aside and turned away from him. By the rise and fall of his shoulders, it looked like he was crying. That was when Catherine approached, kneeling down before him and placing a velvety hand on his cheek. Her skin was hot to the touch, almost burning. The expression on her face was an odd mixture of resolve and sorrow.
“My poor Matthew,” Catherine whispered. “Does it hurt?”
He groaned.
“The pain will end soon, darling. Worry not.”
His head grew faint, and he felt his body begin to tip over. Catherine guided him to the floor, resting his head atop the hard wood. He coughed, and a spray of red left his mouth, forming tiny dots on Catherine’s elegant dress. His chest hitched, and he began to sob despite the pain.
His voice was nothing more than a sigh when he asked, “Why?” once more.
Catherine shook her head. “I do love you, you know. I always have, ever since I was a girl. But love fades, love changes, and when that happens, the only thing you can do is change along with it.”
Matthew’s head lolled. Catherine grabbed him by the hair, making sure their eyes met.
“I know you love me in your own way, Matthew,” she continued. “And I never lied to you. I have long since forgiven your trysts and your long absences from our home. That is not why I must do this.”
The pain became too much to bear, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, but then a heavy hand struck him across the cheek, returning him to wakefulness.
“Stay with me, Matthew. I have not made this decision out of spite, but out of survival. You are a powerful man, and yet you are weak, so weak. Your fortune, though vast, pales in comparison to what it should have been. When this war began, you freely gave of your own ships, of your own purse, of your own people, when Karak came calling. It was not until Romeo and Cleo invited you to their secret meeting that you showed any backbone. Though even that should not have happened. You should have perished on your way to that meeting.”
Matthew’s eyes widened. “You…” he moaned.
“Yes, me. One of your guards told me of your summit with the brothers, so I brought hired men into the city through your own secret whore tunnel. Unfortunately, the men I hired were simple brigands, not skilled enough to deal with Moira and the lug. I learned my lesson.”
Matthew’s eyes flicked to Bren as his vision began to waver.
Catherine glanced at the bodyguard, who still had his back to them.
“Ah, yes, your protector. A week after the failed attempt on your life, I offered him half the coin I had stowed away, along with the deed to the lands we hold north of the river. He almost leapt at the offer.” She tsk’d at him. “You have always been a silly man, Matthew. You cannot get much sillier than blindly trusting a man whose love of gold outweighs his love of you.”
“Sorry, boss,” Bren’s cracking voice said.
Catherine frowned. “Don’t you see, my love? I do this for our children. For our girls, for little Ryan. You would have ruined us by giving Karak all we had and then letting the Conningtons swoop in to take what remained. There needed to be someone smarter in charge of the family fortune, someone with the stomach to make tough decisions. That someone is me, dear husband. It always has been, though you were too proud to see it. Perhaps now you do.”
She let go of his hair, and his cheek slammed against the floor. His thoughts were awash with his wife’s betrayal, of the life that was rapidly leaving him. Images of his children flashed in front of his eyes as tears poured down his face. He would never see Mary get married, never watch Christina ride a horse for the first time, never teach Ryan how to sail along the rough ocean waters.
“I’m…sorry…,” he whispered to their memory.
“You are indeed,” said Catherine in reply.
Matthew closed his eyes, and his body lost all feeling. He was brought back to better times, when he and Catherine had been but two teenagers in love, happily frolicking through the reeds, drinking wine while sitting on a blanket in front of the ocean, making love beneath the full moon. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that he was being dragged along the floor, and he heard Catherine shrieking in horror. Then the heat of the sun was on his face for the final time, and the world seemed to stop spinning as the dying sounds of battle filled the air.
The last thing he heard was Catherine’s voice, shouting above the din.
“My husband! They murdered my husband!”
They sure did, he thought, and then everything went black.
CHAPTER 41
Ahaesarus didn’t like this. Not one bit.
He and Turock Escheton stood in a secluded room in the rear of Blood Tower, staring at the man tied to the pole opposite him. The man was dressed in one of Abigail’s nightshirts, which was torn and spotted with blood. There was still more blood on his chin, coating his brow, dripping from his missing left ear.