... “Michael. Your friend and mine. James Talbert is dead.”
He was silent for a time, then asked simply.
“How?”
“Two men attacked me on the road west of my mother’s hut.” She thought it best not to add that they were English. As it was he came forward and took her by the shoulders, with a look of sudden anger and concern.
“Attacked you? Are you all right? They didn’t---” She shook her head quickly, emphatically.
“No. James saw to that. He killed the one. . .then was shot in the back by the other, who rode away.” She looked at him imploringly. “I’m so terribly sorry. I feel as if it’s my fault.....” He held her close to him, and closed his eyes.
“No, my girl,” he said at length. “It’s not your fault, and no more than I expected. I don’t know if I can explain this to you. Here. Sit you down, and let me wrap the coverlet about me. I’m afraid I’m not quite well.”
She did as he asked, and studied this new Michael as he spoke. He had changed both physically and spiritually, though there had always been another side of him, seeming at times so serious and worn that she could find no trace of the hardy, boisterous youth she had once known.
And even as he spoke of the hardship and sorrow of another, her woman’s instinct read his own tale between the lines. And seeing his pain, she determined to learn fully of the scars and afflictions he bore, that she might nurse him again to health and ease of mind.
“James had a rough go of it in prison, as did we all. But for him the more so, because he could never master his pride and fierce temper. He didn’t know when to back down, and just survive. Because of this he was often singled out for punishment, as an example to the rest. Punishment in that place. . .took various forms. But it always ended with the Cellar, a cold and solitary cell in the ancient dungeon that lay beneath our castle prison.