Tyrant of the Mind by Priscilla Royal Read Free Book Online Page B

face.
    The Lady Isabelle, flung free by the violent assault, tumbled back into Juliana’s arms.
    Henry fell into the snow, blood from his nose running in a rivulet down to his chin and dripping into the urine-streaked slush.
    Picking his heir up by the cloak with one hand, Sir Geoffrey spat in his face and tossed him back into the muck. Then, with a quick jab of his foot to Henry’s groin, he turned and left his son writhing on the foul and freezing earth.
    Thomas winced, then stepped toward the squirming figure on the ground. Henry may have richly deserved some punishment for his crass behavior, but Sir Geoffrey’s assault was brutal. Suddenly Thomas felt a hand on his sleeve, gently but firmly pulling him back.
    “Let him be,” Robert said, his tone mocking and his gaze hard as iron. “He got no more than he deserved.”

Chapter Six
    Thomas hastened down the stone walkway toward Richard’s chambers, shivering as he went. Even inside the walls, warmth was a relative thing. A bitter wind invaded the castle corridors through wood-shuttered windows and arrow-loops with far greater success than any human enemy ever could, and neither the spiced wine he had just drunk nor his thick woolen robe were of significant help in banishing the chill. When he had left the open ward, his feet had been numb from the ice-cold slush. Now, as feeling returned, they burned. He grumbled to himself, hugging his body with his arms and shaking uncontrollably. Without a doubt, Thomas felt utterly wretched.
    However desolate Tyndal and East Anglia might be, its people surly with the damp and morose from the heavy gray clouds that weighed down a man’s soul, there was nothing quite like this bone-snapping cold for misery. Sister Anne had warned him about it just before their journey here. If a man weren’t careful, she had said, it could turn his flesh as black as charcoal and he would rot to death of it. Thomas shook his head as he stumbled with the pain in his burning feet. He did not want to see what color they might have turned.
    Perhaps this northern cold also blackened souls like it did flesh? That might explain the scene between Henry and Sir Geoffrey. Yes, the son had been churlish, but the father’s response had been malicious in the extreme. Although Thomas’ own father had been remiss in displays of affection and easily distracted from his children, he had never been vicious. Yell he might have done on occasion, but never once, to Thomas’ knowledge, had the earl struck any of his offspring whatever their legitimacy. On the other hand, neither he nor his half-brothers had ever tried to assault one of his father’s wives.
    Why had Henry attacked his stepmother? Thomas’ first thought was that the Lady Isabelle might have played some part in the death of the Welshman. Henry had, after all, claimed the death was not his fault, that the attendant’s horse had moved in front of his. Perhaps she had caused the Welshman’s horse to charge forward, then allowed blame to be cast at her stepson’s feet when he reacted by striking the beast. Could he have done nothing else? Was he innocent of thoughtlessness and unable to prove it?
    Or had the lady perhaps taunted him during the ride, mocking his manhood because he had chosen feminine company instead of going out hunting with Robert? From what Robert had suggested and Thomas had witnessed himself, the lady enjoyed enticing hunters in an amorous chase. Perchance she had taken such a game too far with her stepson this morning?
    Then there was the father’s reaction. Thomas’ first impression of Sir Geoffrey had been that of a temperate man with a gentle voice to the groom and a soft caress for his horse. Yet this moderate knight had quickly shown another side, one dark with rank malice. He recalled Sir Geoffrey’s remark expressing a wish that his son would share a place in Hell with the Welshman. What father would wish such a thing on a son? Of course there might be details, like