for another person. His look could only have been given by one who has loved but whose love has turned to the other side.
Zared looked away from him, could not watch him as he stumbled up the stone stairs into the lord's chamber.
"Go," Severn said from behind her. "You must hear his sentence."
Zared recovered her senses enough to look at her surroundings. Behind Tearle were several of Rogan's men, then came Liana, clasping her son to her. Behind her was Rogan, then more of his men.
"W-where was he?" Zared asked.
"We found him before he could reach the land the Howards stole from us. He was alone with the child." Severn turned from her and went up the stairs behind the others.
Glumly Zared followed him.
The sight that greeted her was worse than she had imagined. Tearle, barely able to stand, his clothes torn and bloodstained, was surrounded by Rogan's men. Liana, clutching her child, who was sleeping on her shoulder, was sitting near her husband, her eyes showing her relief at having her child back with her.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Howard?" Rogan said in a voice full of rage.
Tearle lifted his head and glared at his brother-in-law. "I have told you all," he managed to whisper through a swollen mouth. "You will hear nothing more."
"Take him and kill him," Rogan said.
It was Liana who protested, not out of any desire to protect Tearle, but out of fear of Howard retaliation. "You cannot do this. His brother is a duke." Her son woke at her outburst and immediately wanted to be put down. Liana, still too weak to hold a sturdy three-year-old against his will, set the boy on the floor. She stood up and went to her husband. "You will have to take him to London to the king."
Rogan gave Tearle a look of contempt. "The king will not see to justice. The man says that he did not take the boy. He says that he was saving him. The king will believe a Howard, for a Howard has enough money to buy even a king."
"Did not take the child? What do you mean?"
"I do not know," Rogan said. "The man is always full of words."
At the very idea that Tearle didn't take Rogan's son Zared's heart leaped, but she made it be still. She had believed in him once, but she was not going to believe in him again. She stood there rigidly, seeing that he was having difficulty in standing, but by some great force of will he was making himself remain upright. He had not looked in her direction since he had left the courtyard.
"Rogan," Liana said, "I want to hear what the man says."
"Nay," Rogan said. "I will hear no more of his lies." He turned to his men. "Take him below."
Zared would not have thought that Tearle had any fight left in him, but he struggled against Rogan's men when they put their hands on him.
It was at the struggle that Rogan's son let out a cry of protest and ran toward the men. The child, who was afraid of nothing, ran straight into their heavily shod feet.
Everyone else in the room was so intent on what was happening with the adults that no one but Liana saw the child. She gave a scream of fright, and when she did nearly everyone looked down and saw the boy just as one of Rogan's men's fists came toward the boy's head.
With his last bit of effort Tearle twisted and used his own body to protect the child from the blow. The fist hit Tearle's side, and everyone in the room heard the crack of Tearle's ribs.
For a moment all was still, everyone too stunned by what had happened to move. Tearle was on the floor, his body protectively over the child.
Liana went to her child, but the boy put his arms around Tearle's neck and held on.
Zared did not seem able to move as she stood to one side and watched. Tearle, with tears of pain in his eyes, rolled to a sitting position and took the child in his arms.
He looked over the boy's head to Liana, who was standing by, shaking with fear from having come, again, so close to losing her child, for had the man's fist struck the child, it would have no doubt killed him.
"We have become friends in the last days," Tearle said, his voice strained and shallow.
Rogan started toward the man and boy, but Liana put her hand out to stop him. "What happened?" she whispered.
They could all see that it was with utmost difficulty that Tearle spoke, and there was no imagining the pain the sturdy child must be causing him as he moved about on Tearle's lap, but the boy would not leave Tearle even when his mother held out her arms to him.
"I could not sleep," Tearle said, and they could hardly hear him. "I went below, and…" He took a breath and closed his eyes for a moment against the pain. "The child was there. We… we played with a ball for a while." Tearle took another breath. "I must have fallen asleep. I opened my eyes, and the gate was open, and the child was gone." Tearle winced as the active little boy kicked him in the stomach, but Tearle merely put his hand on the child's foot and gently held it.