68 – Consequences

It took a few seconds for me to overcome my desire to eviscerate the knight still frozen in shock in the doorway. Mad as I was, there were better ways of dealing with him. He was quite resistant to influence, as expected, but my presence clearly worked well enough.

Meanwhile, Lars helped Theodore get back upright, the old man holding onto him to steady himself. Tearing my eyes away from the aggressor, I took in the doctor’s form. At first glance, he appeared fine. Thankfully. A bit shaky on his feet, but no visible wounds. I also didn’t smell any spilled blood.

“Are you all right, doctor Theodore? Priest Tristan, if you would…” Tristan was already moving closer before I got even halfway through my sentence.

“I– I think I’m fine? Nothing appears to be broken, at least.” Theodore was patting his body down, checking his bones. I noticed his hands were jittery, the sight causing my rage to flare up again.

Seeing Theodore well taken care of, with Tristan running shimmering hands over his body while gently murmuring, I turned my attention back to Maximilian. The knight was sweating, still standing in the same spot. Lars had taken up a ready position between him and the rest of the room’s occupants, with Mia taking over his previous job stabilizing Theodore.

“Explain yourself. Now.” I did my best not to grind my teeth and speak clearly. My tone was ice cold.

Maximilian gulped, then seemed to find his backbone again. “I don’t answer to–”

“Think very carefully now,” I hissed. “You almost murdered my doctor right in front of me. While he was doing his job, ensuring you got the best care possible. As. A. Guest. In my manor. I have been unbelievably gracious so far, ignoring all of your slights. No more. Father wanted me to get along with my sister, which I have been doing my best to honor. This is clearly not reciprocal. I believe I would be well within my rights, as a host, to demand a duel to settle this. If not kick you out of my manor entirely.”

My glare was causing his newfound confidence to waver again. His gaze also flicked to Lars for a moment, his heart accelerating with stress. He knew he couldn’t beat my knight.

“If you weren’t a knight of the Steelheart family, my sister’s knight at that, I would not think twice about having you cut down for this. You should be grateful I’m still giving father’s wish so much respect here, after all your group has done in the short time you’ve been here. That will change, going forward. There won’t be another chance. Now, you were saying?”

Apparently, even his renewed fear wasn’t enough to make Maximilian take a verbal step back. “I was led here, away from my lady’s side, under false pretenses. And I will not be tricked by your schemes, cursed spawn, nor manhandled by your senile quack! The duke will hear of this!”

Well, that was revealing. There was too much passion in those words for me to believe it was all an act meant purely to antagonize me. Which didn’t mean that wasn’t the motive of whoever riled him up against me to this extent.

“Oh, don’t you worry, my father will hear all about this. Including how you attacked my man unprovoked.” My fury was transforming into a deadly focus now. He shuddered under my gaze.

“Unprovoked?! He–” Maximilian was clearly working himself up to overcome his previous intimidated state. My ice-cold glare didn’t let him finish.

“Are you going to tell me the old, frail man – who didn’t even touch you – somehow threatened you, a trained knight? So much so that you felt the only way to deal with the situation was to push said frail old man with enough force to nearly toss him across the room? Don’t make me laugh. You are lucky he wasn’t seriously hurt, otherwise I would not be so restrained now. Father’s wishes or not.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Theodore take off his robe and the shirt he wore underneath, revealing an already bruising hand-print on his chest. Tristan immediately gently touched his glowing hands to the blemishes, healing them.

Maximilian clearly saw this too, from the way he paled as the blood rushed back out of his face.

“Could have easily broken some ribs,” Lars grunted, his tone unfriendly. From what I knew, he got along pretty well with the doctor.

“Did you intend to cripple or even murder one of my people? When I went out of my way to arrange healing for you? Healing that, must I remind you, you kept refusing for no good reason?”

The previous burst of confidence was evaporating rapidly, by the way Maximilian fidgeted in place.

“No, I–”

“No? So you’re saying you are just an incompetent hothead who can’t properly control his own strength? What a shame to knights of the Steelheart family, isn’t that right, Lars?” I shook my head.

“Indeed.” Lars looked disgusted, almost like he wanted to spit on the floor at the other knight’s feet. Quite the unusual expression on the usually rather composed man. “Less well adjusted than most trainees in my batch when we were barely halfway through training.”

This was too much for Maximilian, his blood pressure spiking again as red crept back onto his face.

“I will not be insulted–”

“Shut. Up.” Again, my voice cut through his rant before he could even properly begin. “You don’t get it, do you? What kind of situation you’re in?”

I could tell he had no idea what I meant.

“Have you ever considered how your actions here reflect on your lady? An incompetent knight acting out of turn while she’s staying here as a guest, it doesn’t make my dear sister look good at all.”

That got through to him, though he clearly didn’t want to admit it. As he opened his mouth to retort, I cut him off again.

“Or did she command you to make trouble on purpose? Then it wouldn’t be a lack of skill in controlling and maintaining discipline among her followers, but instead a direct provocation. I’m sure father would just love to hear about that, at a time like this. Anything to say, hmm?”

His teeth grinding so loudly I was sure everyone in the room could hear, Maximilian took a moment to think through his answer. First time so far. I guess even an arrogant dog can be taught new tricks. The hesitation between the two options of admitting his own fault and making Lenora seem incompetent, or creating even more trouble for her by denying it, was clearly visible on his face.

Finally, he mumbled, “This was not on my lady’s order.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said, Lady Lenora had nothing to do with this!”

“Don’t you dare yell at Lord Steelheart.” Lars’ posture became more overtly threatening. Maximilian broke eye contact with me to glare at him, but quickly looked away, intimidated.

“Well, at least my dear sister is just incompetent or unlucky when it comes to handling her subordinates. Now, how to deal with you…”

Mia sent me a look that might have meant something like ‘don’t do anything stupid’, though she looked angry at the fool as well. The idiot knight himself tensed up.

“Considering that doctor Theodore wasn’t seriously injured or killed, I am willing to give my sister some grace for the last time and settle this matter peacefully. I will even do my duty as host and still pay for your healing. All you have to do in return is cooperate. Admit your fault and apologize.”

That statement made everyone in the room pause. Even Lars turned to give me a momentary surprised look. Mia tried to suppress a relieved sigh, though she looked just as shocked at my ruling as the rest.

Mr. Idiot Knight stared at me blankly, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. I could almost hear the gears in his brain grinding to a stop.

The only person who remained focused and didn’t get distracted from what he was doing was Tristan. Only his face revealed that his mental state wasn’t much different from the others, with his body still carefully tending to the shrinking bruise. Progress on that front was slow, compared to when I watched him erase cuts by basically wiping them away.

My appreciation for the man improved significantly on seeing his commitment to his job. Not that I thought badly of the priest before. But there was always room for improvement, which he was rapidly growing into.

“What?” came Maximilian’s eloquent reply after several seconds of silence.

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“I meant what I said. Admit your fault, apologize, and you can walk out of this room and back to my sister healed.”

He still stared at me, uncomprehending. I saw arrogant unwillingness slowly seep back into his eyes. I spoke before he opened his mouth to say something incredibly dumb again.

“Alternatively, you can reject this generous offer. I won’t stop you. No, I won’t stop you from spitting in the face of my grace, further damaging my sister’s reputation and betraying your duty to serve her to the best of your ability. I’m sure my sister would appreciate a traitorous buffoon like you being disciplined for her. You’re already looking to be crippled for life, as it is, a little additional beating won’t make much of a difference. Go ahead, make your choice. Just be ready to live with the consequences.”