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“What happened,” he said, his voice thick with anger and fear. “Your face.”
Avenel moved the damp cloth away from his face to reveal his red, bruised cheek. He’d obviously been struck, and he was too upset to reply to Sebald with words.
Sebald let out a ragged breath and touched the side of Avenel’s face gently. One moment, his eyes filled with tears and shared pain. The next, they hardened with fury. I knew exactly how he felt. Exactly.
Sebald pulled Avenel into his arms and held him tightly. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, just loud enough for me to hear. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I knew this would happen. I’m sorry.”
Avenel whimpered slightly and sagged against Sebald, dropping his forehead to Sebald’s shoulder.
“This ass broke into your house when the pups were alone.” Katrina did the honors of telling the story. “When he didn’t find what he was looking for here, he got violent. Genny thought fast and came to get me.” She nodded toward Genny and me. “By the time I got over here, the bastard had already wrestled Avenel to the ground in the garden and was pummeling him, screaming something about how Sebald belonged to him. Kliment tried to pull him off, but he was hit for his troubles too.”
“Bee, how could you?” Sebald shouted, clutching Avenel tightly as he turned to glare at his old lover.
“He’s nothing,” Bee shouted in reply. “You don’t love him. He’s just a boy. I’m the one you love. I’m the one you should be with.”
Barthold was so absorbed in arguing Sebald into loving him that he didn’t see Jorgen coming. He looked as though he would carry on shouting and complaining about Sebald loving him, but those words stopped short with a yelp as Jorgen grabbed a handful of his hair.
Even Katrina, as strong as she was, had to move back to avoid being toppled as Jorgen wrenched Barthold to his feet.
“No one lays a hand on my pup and gets away with it,” Jorgen growled.
Not much scared me, not anymore, but Jorgen’s rage came close. He hurled Barthold toward the door and out into the garden. Barthold tried to scream and fight Jorgen off, but Jorgen was by far the stronger man. In more ways than one. He let go of Barthold’s hair long enough to push him outside.
Hati quickly followed, as did Katrina. Sebald was closer to the door and started after Jorgen as well with Avenel.
“No!” I shouted, stopping everyone but Hati. “The pups need to stay inside.”
I had a pretty good idea what was about to happen. I could tell Genny did too by the way all color drained from his face. He pulled away from me and moved stiffly to the center of the room, where he knelt as if following an order.
Hati was only halfway out the door, but he paused. We could all hear Barthold shouting and struggling outside. Hati glanced out, then turned to Nikandr with a nod. “He’s right. The pups will stay inside.”
That was all it took for Nikandr to do exactly what Genny had done. As soon as he moved to the middle of the room and knelt, Kliment did as well.
Avenel looked to Sebald for permission, and when a horrified look of realization dawned in Sebald’s eyes, Sebald swallowed, then nodded. Avenel stepped away from him and joined the others in kneeling.
The rest of us hurried outside. The whole exchange with the pups had taken no more than thirty seconds. Jorgen was still advancing on Barthold as we poured into the garden. Part of me found it ironic that he was taking care to push Barthold away from the stones of the patio and across the space into the garden of the house where Genny and I were staying with Magnus, Peter, and Neil. It would be better not to get blood on the stones, or to have a murder take place at Sebald’s cottage.
“Sea, help me,” Barthold called out to Sebald, stumbling to get away from Jorgen as they crossed into the less manicured garden in back of Magnus’s cottage. “Save me from this madman!”
It only took one glance at Sebald to see he wasn’t going to save his old friend from shit. But I had to give Sebald credit for being a good man. His eyes were red-rimmed and glassy with fear and regret.
Jorgen’s eyes were another story. They held nothing but rage. “You raised a hand to what is mine, and you will pay the price,” he said in an ominous voice, reaching inside his tunic. “No one gets away with striking my pup, no one.”
Barthold let out a terrified wail. He stumbled at the sight of the knife Jorgen drew. That didn’t help him at all as he turned and tried to flee across Magnus’s garden.
It was another strange stroke of luck that Barthold made it all the way to the abandoned cottage on the far side of Magnus’s. That way, when Jorgen caught up to him, clamped an arm around his jaw, and sliced the blade across his neck, the blood that spurted from the bastard soaked into the grass of a house where no one was staying.
Jorgen must have had some sense of how things would look. As Barthold kicked and struggled against the end of his life, Jorgen pulled him farther into that overgrown garden and dropped him to his knees. The grass grew high enough that Barthold was only partially visible as Jorgen threw him face down and held him there, watching until Barthold stopped moving entirely.
The silence that fell over the gardens once Barthold was dead was as heavy as the thick snow that had fallen from the sky the last time I was in that part of my home city. I couldn’t find it in me to feel even a little sad for the man who had just been killed. He’d not only hurt Jorgen’s pup and Avenel, he’d abused his wife and perhaps permanently damaged an infant, his own son. Magnus was forever going on about how every life on the frontier was important and how we couldn’t afford to waste a single one, but I knew that even he would have approved of the loss of that particular life.
Jorgen eventually rocked back, wiping his knife in the grass, then stood. He had very little, if any blood on him. I figured he’d killed men like that before and knew how to do it cleanly. He didn’t even spare a glance for Barthold before walking slowly over to the rest of us.
“I apologize for whatever trouble this might cause,” he told Sebald, bowing slightly to him. When he straightened, he said, “You knew as I did that the man had to die.”
Sebald swallowed, his face slightly green, and nodded. His eyes were filled with unshed tears, and his shoulders were stooped. As Jorgen stepped away from him, Sebald’s eyes fell to Barthold’s lifeless form.
Jorgen and Hati headed back to the cottage. Katrina looked like she might stick around, but I shook my head and nodded for her to go. She nodded in return, then left us.
