Her face emptied for an instant. Not because she did not know the name. Everyone knew it. In story, in accusation, in prayer, in horror. One of the four knights. One of the men who had gone into Canterbury Cathedral and turned a king’s rage into blood. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter than before. “You.”
“I was there.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
The candle on the table hissed. Wax slid down its side in a pale track. Outside, thunder rolled far off over the marsh, too distant yet to frighten anyone, but coming.
Aingeal opened her eyes again. “Say it fully.”
The command of it ran the length of his spine. “I was one of the knights who killed Archbishop Thomas Becket.”
Aingeal stepped back. Only one pace.
He had known there would be a moment like this from the instant the rider spoke in the yard. The instant truth ceased to be burden and became blade. He had thought himself prepared.
He was not. Still, he forced himself onward because half-truths had done enough damage already. “I believed then that I acted in obedience,” he said. “I believed the king’s will stood behind what we did, whether he spoke it plainly or not. I held to that for years.”
“And now?” she asked.
Now he was no longer certain. But neither was he ready to stand before her speaking repentance like a man already remade. That would have been another lie, and he had none left to spend. “Now,” he said slowly, “I know that what I believed then is not enough.”
Her expression deepened.
He continued before courage failed him. “I do not ask you to understand it. I do not ask forgiveness. I do not even ask you to believe there was ever honor in me. Only this: I did not mean to bind you under a false name, and I did not come here seeking you as spoil or refuge.” His voice roughened. “What happened between us after that was never part of any plan I had.”
Aingeal’s mouth trembled once and hardened again. “What happened between us was real.”
“Yes,” he admitted in a ragged sigh. Reginald drew a breath. There was one thing left to say. Perhaps the only thing that still resembled mercy. “If I am allowed, I will leave before dawn.”
Her gaze snapped to his.
He forced himself to continue. “The alliance is broken. The name is ash. I have no right to remain here one hour longer than you require for the safety of the castle. If Brennach or Tomas wish me guarded until morning, I will not resist. If you wish me gone this instant, I will go.” He stood before her fully then, not as Donal, not as any useful fiction, but as the man stripped bare by his own confession. “But I will not stay and make you bear more of me than you already have.”
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Rain struck harder at the shutters now. The chamber seemed made of shadow, wet stone, and the aching distance between them.
When she did speak, her voice was very quiet. “That is all, then?”
No, he wanted to say. Not even close. There is more darkness in me yet, and more tenderness too. I have loved you badly, too late, and more than is safe. I do not know how to leave without tearing the best thing I found here out of myself, and I do not know how to stay without ruining you further. But none of thosetruths would help her now. So he answered only, “It is all that remains for me to do.”
Her face went cold in a new way. The colder thing that comes when the wound is too deep even for rage. She gave one small nod. Then another, as if forcing herself back into shape. “Very well,” she said.
He had heard surrender from men before battle that had not broken him half so much.
Aingeal moved to the door. Her hand found the latch. She did not open it immediately.
For one terrible heartbeat, Reginald thought she might turn back. Might say his name. Might curse him. Might ask one last question neither of them could survive.
Instead, she stood with her back to him and said, “You should have let me hate only Donal.” Then she left, the door shutting softly behind her.
Reginald remained where he was, staring at the place she had stood as if some part of him still believed he might call her back.
There was nothing to call her back to. Only the room. The rain. The false name dead at last between them.
And the real one risen like an opened grave beneath their feet.
Chapter twenty-four
