The Feud

“Time’s up!” My back straightened as if the voice, which cracked like a whip, had bitten deep into my skin. The sudden silence that fell upon the clearing was deafening - as if the very trees around us were holding their collective breath. No wind rustled the leaves; not a single creature disturbed the undergrowth.

A hand roughly tore the stinking scrap of cloth from my eyes, and suddenly I was staring into those same flinty eyes I’d seared into memory decades ago. The hatred burning in those malevolent sockets was mirrored in mine, I knew. But there was something else - something I couldn’t quite place.

It felt oddly fitting that this feud would end in the very place it had all begun. Oh, how I wished he’d died instead, this creature who’d taken everything from me.

I’d found them right here, in this clearing; my beloved Patrick with this - philandering charlatan - and my world had shattered. I’d been heartbroken, but I hadn’t hated the man who now stood before me. Not then.

They should never have been here that day. It was his fault - his fault - that Patrick was gone. When that damned hunting party had swept in, I’d had the good sense to hide, while this coward had fled. Patrick was left at the mercy of the king’s men.

Caught in the act, my darling Patrick was sentenced to death. Murdered for who he loved, dragged naked through the trees as I watched from safety and did nothing.

“Time’s up!” my adversary snarled again. “Your choice?”

“We fight”, I hissed, and he sliced through my restraints before tossing aside his knife. Rolling up my sleeves, I finally understood what it was I saw in my enemy’s eyes.

He had loved Patrick too.