Free The White Lord of Wellesbourne by Kathryn Le Veque Page A

service for years and were well versed
in the world of intelligence gathering.  Leaning against the massive map table,
he ran his hand over his close-shorn hair. It was a pensive, if not weary,
gesture.
    “A thousand mercenaries,” he
muttered, more to himself. “Copious amounts of manpower are pouring into the
heart of England. It is like watching a man bleed to death and not knowing how
to stop the blood. It just keeps coming.”
    “So what do we do?” Luke asked.
    “Obviously, the king must know,”
Matthew replied. “I shall question the scouts myself to make sure there is
nothing else we should know before sending them on to Richard.”
    Mark nodded. “I thought you would
want to. In fact, I tried to locate you last night when they arrived but was
unable to find you.”
    “I was with Father.”
    A strange, if not disappointed,
silence filled the air. It confirmed what they had all assumed, but it was Luke
who finally spoke.
    “You cannot blame her, you know,”
he said quietly.
    “I do not blame her,” Matthew
said evenly. “But we should have known. I tried to stop him, but not firmly
enough. I should have put a stop to it before it even started.”
    Mark and Luke passed long
glances.  “He was like this when Caroline first came to us,” Mark said quietly.
“The presence of a lady seems to unnerve him that way. But he got over it.”
    “Aye, he did, but at what cost?”
Matthew began to show irritation, fed by his exhaustion. “It is not either one
of you that sits with him all night, listing to him cry, holding him down when
he tries to throw himself into the blazing hearth or hang himself with any
piece of cloth he can find.  I thought we were done with all of this madness,
but that song undid what the past year of healing has accomplished. We do not
need this chaos right now; we’ve too many other things that are far more
important.”
    “I repeat,” Luke said slowly,
“that it is not her fault. She did not know how that song affects him.”
    “It releases suicidal depression
and grief over a woman who died twelve years ago.” Matthew looked at his
brothers. “I am not going to go through this again, do you hear? I will lock
him in the vault for the next twenty years for his own protection if he cannot
come to terms with our mother’s death .  I will not go through this again .”
    Mark and Luke remained silent,
their eyes focused on anything other than their stressed brother. Matthew was
right; he had taken the brunt of their father’s insane grief over the past
twelve years because Matthew as the only person who brought Adam a remote
amount of comfort.  It was an unpredictable madness, set off by the most
innocuous things; a flower, a memory, a trinket… it was hard to tell what would
throw Adam into a spin of despair. But they had all known that the song would
be a major catalyst. It had been the favorite song of Adam and Audrey
Wellesbourne. And Matthew had allowed it to happen; his anger at the moment was
more at himself than anything.
    “I am sorry you had to deal with
his madness yet again.” Mark wanted off the subject before Matthew became any
more enraged. “Perhaps we should go see to the two scouts.” He stood up,
motioning to Luke to do the same. “Get some sleep, Matt. You will feel better
after you have had some rest.”
    Matthew was still perched on the
end of the map table.  “Better,” he snorted, savoring the irony of the word.
“My father is locked in his chamber, tied down to the bed, I have an army of
Irish mercenaries moving up the Severn, and tonight at Vespers I am to wed. 
When am I supposed to find the time to rest?”
    Mark could see the haze of
self-pity coming over his brother. Not that Matthew did not have every right,
but at times it could almost be crippling. “I will see to Father,” he said.
“Luke will take care of Thomas and Harl so that all you will have to worry over
his your wedding.”
    Matthew did not respond right
away, sitting in