Reckless (Age of Conquest #5) - Tamara Leigh Page 0,66

and his forces landed days later.”

“I am guessing Jaxon accepted no responsibility for his son’s demise,” Nicola said.

He recalled the old warrior’s anger and bitterness. “He knew what he wrought, yet he resented me as if my cowardice forced his son to take my place. Indeed, at times it felt he hated me as much as the Normans who succeeded where the Norwegians failed.”

Nicola touched his arm as if to draw him back from memories of his days and nights in the Saxon rebel camp when Jaxon and he trained men and women into warriors they believed could defeat the invaders.

“I was told that during his great betrayal of Lady Hawisa,” she ventured, “Jaxon nearly slew you when you sought to protect her and the people of Wulfen.”

Feeling the wounds he should not have survived, whose scars should no longer itch, he said, “I live only because I was carried away before every last drop of my life pooled around my body—the one who saved me the smithy I trained into a warrior.”

“Zedekiah.”

He raised his tunic to reveal the ugliest and most jagged of his scars that started at his side above his chausses, crossed his taut abdomen, and ended beneath his breastbone. “That one he stitched to hold me together until he could get me to a physician.”

Nicola set her fingers on it as he should not allow and began tracing its path. When she reached its end, she looked up. “That alone should have killed you,” she said softly, then with wonder, “Abandoned by the Lord though you may feel, He was there alongside Zedekiah.” Her brow convulsed. “May I look nearer?”

Neither should he allow that, but he nodded and stared at her bent head as she shifted his tunic to examine the other scars, not all of which had been delivered by Jaxon’s blade. When she followed one beneath his arm around to his shoulder blade and began exploring those on his back, he said, “As you guessed, I am well-acquainted with needle and thread, and yet ever the experience feels new.”

She lowered his tunic and started to resume her seat beside him, then gave a squeak of dismay and hastened to the fire.

“’Tis very well-cooked,” she melded the first two words as was common in the Anglo-Saxon language, though never before had he heard her do so. “But edible,” she added with apology and kicked dirt over the flames.

When once more they were on opposite sides of the fire, each picked away the burned portions and eased their hunger with edible bits. Fortunately, what Vitalis purchased at market supplied the rest of their needs.

For the remainder of the day, no more was spoken of Zedekiah nor Vitalis’s scars. However, when they settled for the night, Nicola asked across the dim, “Was the reason you did not send Zedekiah away as you did the others because he would not go?”

Pain lanced his chest, and when he felt an answering pain in his left hand for the fist made of it, here was further proof he was far from accepting his friend’s death. “Aye, ’tis hard to argue with a determined man who saved your life and is more a brother than any you have had.”

“Yet you blame yourself.”

“Certes, more than I blame myself for Sigward’s death.”

“You speak of the one who did grave injury to Aelfled ere my brother, Cyr, wed her. Is that not right?”

“Aye, after Sigward betrayed me and the rebels who sided with me over Jaxon, which led to our capture by your brother.”

“Then you do not regret Sigward’s death?”

“I did not say that, Nicola, only that more I regret the part I played in the loss of Zedekiah.”

“As I also played a part.”

“So you did.” He breathed deep. “But it all flows back to me.”

“Zedekiah said you would bear the greatest burden when he was gone,” she reminded, then turned the conversation back to Jaxon’s man. “I was told what took Sigward’s life was internal bleeding, not from your attack but those of the other rebels.”

Vitalis wanted her to leave it be, but more he wanted to be alone with his thoughts, and that was difficult while she was awake, even were she silent.

He pushed onto an elbow. “I was their leader, Nicola. When a man leads others, it is expected he will be followed. Though I controlled my anger when I learned Sigward was the reason we walked into a trap, I lost control when he injured Aelfled. Aye, I pulled back,