Beatrix opened her mouth, then clamped it shut.
“Is there anything else, milady?” the master carpenter asked.
“If you’ll have your men place the table upon it, I would be most grateful.”
“Aye, milady.”
They had barely finished placing the table in the center of the dais when the door to the donjon opened.
A sudden hush fell upon everyone in the hall.
Emily turned her head to see Draven and Simon standing in the open doorway.
Simon’s face grew as pale as a ghost. Draven’s on the other hand, flushed to crimson. He let out a fierce battle cry as he rushed into the room.
His servants and the carpenters fled the room at a dead run. Emily stood frozen. Never had she seen such rage as Draven rushed across the room and seized an axe from the wall above the hearth.
Her eyes widened as he brought it down upon the table and split it in twain.
Suddenly, Simon was behind her pulling her back. “Get out, Emily.”
“But—”
“He knows not what he’s doing.” Simon urged her to leave. “Get out before he hurts you!”
She shrugged off Simon’s hold as Draven continued to shred the table and dais with his axe.
What on earth was wrong with him?
What could there possibly be about a table that would so enrage him?
She didn’t know, but she had to find out. Rushing to his side, she ducked the axe at it came within inches of her head.
“Draven?” She reached out to touch him.
He turned on her with his arm raised as if to strike her.
Emily gasped in terror as she tensed for the blow.
But the blow never came.
As soon as his gaze fell to her face, he froze. And then she saw not the fierce countenance of a warrior, but the hurt-filled eyes of a man in pain. Unbridled agony furrowed his brow, and he looked as if some great phantom haunted him to the core of his very soul.
The axe slid from his hands and fell against the floor with a sharp clatter.
He looked at the shredded table, then the hall as if searching for something, and she noted Simon had left them alone.
“Draven, what is it?”
His gaze went back to the table. “My mother,” he whispered. “She was killed...on the table in this hall.”
Emily covered her lips with her hand.
What had she done? Why hadn’t anyone told her that?
No wonder they had all been so strange acting!
Draven sank to his knees in the center of the hall and pounded his fist against the stone floor.
