Slowly, Thomas unfurled his fist. “Léod was the youngest in our family. A sister and four brothers. We were close. I had become a squire earlier in the day, which you discovered from my father’s outburst.” On a rough breath, he turned toward the flames, the reflection of orange and yellow bright in his eyes. “My younger brother looked up to me, but that day, caught up in my pride, my actions were reckless. I should have been taken to task for teasing Léod, for pushing him.”
Her heart ached as his fingers tighten against the blanket until his knuckles grew white. “What happened?” she whispered.
He lifted his gaze to hers, the misery within almost dropping her to her knees. “I-I convinced him to spar, which isna out of the ordinary. Except on that day I dared him to accept my challenge on a fallen tree straddling a rain-swollen river. As we approached the edge, the thunderous roar of the raging water rose above the rain.” He swallowed hard.
Alesone folded her hands in her lap, understood he needed to purge his memories, and prayed with the telling he could begin to heal.
“While we stood on the bank, I saw my brother’s eyes darken with worry as he watched a small tree caught within the violent current rush past, the leafless branches ripping up clumps of dirt as it was dragged downstream,” he continued, each word forced. “But with the challenge given before our peers, if he’d backed down, ’twould have brought him shame.”
The snap of flames in the hearth filled the silence.
He rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped his hand to his side. “In position on the trunk, at first we traded swings. Once Léod realized I was but teasing him and had nay intention of a blistering match, my brother relaxed.” He swallowed hard. “After blocking my next strike, he stepped back, rounded his blade in a maneuver he hadna yet mastered, nae doubt trying to impress me. Except”—he inhaled with a sharp hiss—“his foot missed the trunk and he lost his balance. Though I lunged to catch him, his fingers clung but a moment on the rain-slick bark before he tumbled into the dangerous current.”
Oh God!
His face grew deathly white. “I can still hear his screams, his pleas for help as he was swept away. I s-swear on my life,” he said, his voice breaking, “I tried to reach him.”
“Thomas—”
“Terrified,” he continued, his voice ripe with condemnation, “I ran along the bank as his arms flailed to reach shore, with me screaming that I would save him with every step.” A tremor shook his body, then another. “I caught up to him several times, but when I waded in to grab him, the swift current hurled him out of reach.”
Tears blurred her eyes at that sheer misery in his voice. “What did you do?”
His body began to shudder.
“Thomas?”
At the raw torment on his face, Alesone understood his anguish, distress that thrived within her at thoughts of how she’d cost Grisel her life.
“When I…” He shook his head. “When I realized I wasna going to reach my brother in time, I ran home. In the bailey, filled with well-wishers who’d traveled to celebrate the day, I screamed for help. As we searched, thunderstorms unleashed their fury. We scoured the rough water in the downpour for hours.”
“You found him?” she asked, her heart breaking.
“My mother did,” he strangled out. “When I arrived, she sat on the mossy bank clutching Léod’s limp body. Her shattered wails will haunt me forever. The next day we buried Léod.”
The last whispered with such desolation, Alesone strained to hear each word. She envisioned him collapsed against the fresh turn of earth, his tears staining the ground, and his sobs inconsolable. Or so filled with pain had he stood in stony silence through the service, his heart shattered.
Once the last prayer was said, lost to his grief, how long had Thomas remained at his brother’s grave? Had any of his family stayed beside him, or so blind to their own pain, had he remained alone?
“Why did you leave Dair Castle?” she asked.
“After the heartache I caused my family,” he said as if a curse, “how could I stay? Each time they saw me, I would be naught but a reminder of what I had done, of the pain I had caused, and of the son they had lost.”
She shoved to her feet. “’Tis unfair to think that.”
Legs trembling, he stood, grasp the headboard to steady himself. “Is it? How can they nae hold me accountable when I took Léod’s life!”
“So you requested to join the monastery.”
“Aye. I believed giving my life to God would somehow make everything right.”
She remembered his father’s tormented claim of coming to the monastery and finding his son gone. “Except you dinna stay.”
“I had intended to,” Thomas said, the day he’d walked through the doors of the monastery etched in his mind. The grandeur of the hewn stone arches, the rich tapestries hanging on the wall, and the sense of a divine presence had offered him a glimmer of hope that somehow he would eventually find peace.
Understanding filled her gaze.
“As Brother Nicholai taught me the daily routine, and the tasks I was expected to perform,” he continued, “over time he became more than a mentor, but a friend. After but a month, grief-stricken, I climbed the ladder to the bell tower and broke down.” He stared at the hearth a long moment before turning to her. “Foolishly, I believed I had slipped away unseen.”
