When Eirik entered one room after another, searching, he finally found Godric, tied in a remote chamber. After he released him, the weeping boy clung to him in fright, unable to speak. Other than being terrified, the child did not appear to be injured. Mayhap Eadyth had been right when she told Britta that Steven would not harm the young boy.
Holding him on his lap, Eirik asked softly, “Do you know where Gravely has gone?”
Godric’s little body began to shiver violently and he clung to Eirik even tighter, but his eyes shifted involuntarily to a drape-covered alcove on the far side of the room. With seeming calmness, Eirik signaled to Tykir with his eyes and handed him the boy. “Best you find Godric some food before we take him home. No doubt, John and the other children will treat him like a conquering hero.” He pushed them both toward the door and pulled his sword from its scabbard and a dagger from his belt.
When he flicked the drape aside, Gravely jumped out at him brandishing a battle axe. His blue eyes were wide and crazed. Froth dribbled from the edges of his mouth.
“At last!” Steven screamed, and having the advantage of surprise, swung the axe over his head toward Eirik’s face. Eirik swerved, but not before the blade swiped a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder almost to the bone. With a curse, Eirik ignored the pain and parried his opponent’s next thrust, managing to wound Steven in the upper abdomen.
Despite the illness which had racked Steven’s once fine body, he was still a strong warrior capable of holding his own against Eirik’s expert skill, at least in the beginning. Back and forth, they parried and thrust. Steven dropped the axe and picked up a sword with nary a blink. But then the ravages of his illness began to take their toll, and Gravely’s endurance faltered. He grew careless and clumsy.
And Eirik lost the taste for the kill. Oh, he would destroy his evil enemy. He had to, if for no other reason than to stop his senseless assaults on any who crossed his path. But the man was clearly insane. His eyes were unnaturally wide and glazed with a berserk lust for blood. His mouth hung slack and trembling, like that of an aged man. Mayhap he had always been mad, but hid it under a calm exterior.
How can I feel pity for this man who has hurt me so?
Because you know he must have suffered greatly to have reached this sorry state, he answered himself.
With a mighty thrust, Eirik shoved him against the wall and held his sword horizontally against Steven’s throat. ” ‘Tis over, Gravely,” he snarled. “Finally, your evil will end.”
Steven cackled madly. “Yea, but will you be able to live with my death, brother?”
A cold chill ran over Eirik. The room rang with an ominous silence. He should have known that, even facing death, Steven would find a way to leave destruction in his wake.
“Eirik, do not listen to him,” Tykir called out from behind him. “Just kill the-bastard.”
Gravely laughed again, not even trying to break free any longer. “Have you never thought on the resemblance betwixt us, Eirik? Black hair. Blue eyes. Same height. You share my blood, brother. And you know it.”
“It cannot be so,” Eirik said, shaking his head in denial.
“Your father planted his seed in my mother the one time she was able to escape her husband, the notorious Earl of Gravely, the man most people thought was my true father. She returned to Gravely when she learned she was breeding.”
Eirik shook his head from side to side, denying Steven’s claims. He still held the sword blade against his enemy’s throat.
Steven continued with his incredible story. “My ‘father’ never wanted me, and after my mother and then he died, I was left at age ten in the care of the most evil man in all Britain—Jerome, the Gravely castellan. And my brother Elwinus, barely out of swaddling cloths. Oh, Lord,” he moaned, and his eyes rolled back in his head at some memory so painful even he could not bear to think on it.