Cassia was fanning herself with her handkerchief. Valeria wasn’t even sure if the woman really heard her, for she didn’t acknowledge her. “Food!” she gasped. “Have the servants bring me food.”
Concerned over her aunt’s health, Valeria rang for a servant and when the woman came, Valeria sent her scurrying for all manner of temptations from the kitchen. Meanwhile, Valeria spoke to the majordomo of Fourstones, a tall and thinly-built man who was quite old, and they both decided that a physic should be summoned. As the majordomo went to accomplish that task, Valeria returned to her stricken aunt.
“All will be well, Auntie,” she said, patting the woman on the shoulder. “You must not trouble yourself so.”
Cassia continued to fan herself. “This is my brother’s fault,” she said. “He is responsible for the roads in this area. He should have men stationed so that bandits cannot prey upon traveling souls. Where is my brother, Valeria? I must see him at once.”
Valeria shook her head. “Papa is out for a time,” she lied. “Mayhap he is capturing the bandits as we speak. Now, I want you to rest, Auntie. You have had a terrible fright.”
Cassia nodded. Her hysterical gasping was turning into tears. “The ring,” she wept. “I was going to give you the ring and now it is gone. Whatever will we do?”
Valeria knew about the ring. Everyone in her family did. It was a family heirloom, passed down from mother to daughter or, in this case, aunt to niece because Cassia had no children. Valeria smiled weakly.
“Mayhap that is a good thing, Auntie,” she said. “I remember that ring with a stone as big as a bird’s egg. It is said to be cursed, is it not? I am not entirely sure I want a cursed ring even if it is an heirloom.”
Cassia stopped fanning. “The Lucius Ring is, indeed, cursed,” she said. “It will curse you if you do not find love by your twenty-fifth year. But if you do find love, it can also be a ring of great fortune. It is said that once the ring turns red, it will promise happiness with your true love for eternity. Isn’t that what you want, my dearest?”
Valeria chuckled. “It is what every girl wants,” she said. “But if it turns black, you are forever cursed, never to find love. I realize the ring is said to go both ways, either a great curse or a great charm, but I would prefer not to be the owner. I would make my own fortune, Auntie.”
Cassia was interested. Something in her niece’s tone suggested there was a reason behind that statement.
“Ah,” she said, forgetting about her hysterics for the moment. “Does our lovely Valeria have someone in mind, then?”
A faint blush mottled Valeria’s cheeks. “Why would you ask that?”
Cassia grinned. “Because I can hear it in your voice, my dearest,” she said. “You do have someone in mind!”
Valeria broke out into a bashful smile. “I will not say so.”
Cassia was delighted. “You do not have to!” she exclaimed. “I can see it in your face! Who is he, my dearest? Do tell your Auntie Cassia everything!”
Valeria didn’t particularly want to, mostly because her aunt had never learned to keep her mouth shut. What she said to her would be shouted all over town. But the truth was that Valeria didn’t really have any womenfolk to speak with. Her mother had died when she was young and her nurse, Lady Biddy, was wildly protective of her young charge and to speak of a man would send the woman into a rage. Therefore, Valeria didn’t really confide in anyone, which made the temptation to confide in Aunt Cassia great. She did so wish to speak of silly, giddy, female things sometimes. And Cassia was definitely a giddy female. Her resistance broke down.
“You must not tell anyone, Auntie,” she said, although she knew they were wasted words. “I do not want anyone to know.”
Cassia was practically drooling at the thought of a juicy secret. “I will not tell a soul, my dearest, not a soul,” she said. “Who is this paragon of male delight?”
Valeria thought on the man as she spoke, her voice turning soft and dreamy. “He is a local lord from an old, distinguished family,” she finally said. “I have known him since childhood.”
Cassia was alight. “His name, child?” she demanded. “Where does he live?”
Valeria was grinning. “Tyren,” she said softly. “Sir Tyren de Dere. He lives at Bardon Castle with his mother and invalid brother.”
“Is he handsome?”
Valeria’s manner turned coy. “It is very possible that he is.”
Cassia’s eyes narrowed. “But he does not know of your feelings for him?”
Valeria shrugged. “We have known each other since we were children,” she said. “It is strange to think of him as a romantic prospect but I find that I think of him constantly.”
“Do you love him?”
Valeria shook her head. “Nay,” she said quickly. “I do not love him. But he is… delightful. And kind.”
That was good enough for Cassia. She grasped Valeria’s hand. “Has he asked your father for your hand yet?”
Valeria’s smile faded as she thought on the dynamics of that particular event. “Nay,” she said. “He… he has not. It is possible that he may not. I am sure he looks at me the same way I look at him – as a childhood friend and nothing more.”
Cassia wasn’t satisfied by that. “But you do not know for certain,” she insisted. “It is quite possible he adores you but is afraid to say so. Do you encourage his affections, my dearest?”
Valeria frowned. “I do not permit him liberties if that is what you mean.”
Cassia squeezed her hand. “Not liberties, child, but encouragement,” she said. “Do you want his affection?”
Valeria averted her gaze. “I do,” she said. “It is only recently that I have come to see him as something other than a man I knew as a child. He has good qualities, Auntie. He is kind and generous. And he laughs as I have never known anyone to laugh.”
Cassia crowed. “Marvelous!” she said. “Then you must encourage him, my dearest. Show him that you would accept his affection.”
Valeria was back to smiling again, embarrassed, and Cassia continued to squeeze her hand and offer romantic advice. Coming from a spinster aunt, Valeria didn’t take the advice too seriously. But those words of encouragement vanished when a servant appeared in the solar entry with a tray of food. That was Valeria’s invitation to leave because she had a good deal to do. The last she saw of Cassia, a servant was spooning almond pudding in her mouth.
Knowing that her aunt was taken care of, she felt free to go about her business.
There was something she had to do.
Chapter Three
The Unhappy Truth
Bardon Castle
14 miles from Fourstones Castle
Bardon Castle had started its life as a Roman villa back in the day when the legionnaires roamed this northern land, building their walls to contain the tribes to the north. Family legend said that a Roman senator had the villa built specifically to house him on a single visit to the north. After that, he gave it to a local tribal family who was friendly with the Roman troops. That is how the de Dere family came into possession the Bardonaii Villa which, over the centuries, became Anglicized as simply Bardon.
But the de Dere family had built around the villa. Bigger walls went up, stone walls from the abundance of stone in the area, and a keep was built next to the villa. Over the centuries, the castle took on a different shape and form, and the walls of the villa eventually came down, but more walls were built up around it and the mosaic tile floor of the villa was now the floor of the great hall of Bardon. It was a sight to see, for the de Dere family had kept it intact as best they could, and the castle was famous for the tiled floor of the great hall.
The House of de Dere had known prosperity then, mostly from herds of shaggy, long-horned cattle that they kept and bred, selling the meat and the animals as well. The castle built an empire out of the cattle. But a few years ago, that prosperity came to an end. A blight wiped out all of the cattle and most of the agriculture, leavi
ng a castle with no way of supporting itself. They had tried to restart the herds by purchasing more cattle, but something in the very soil was killing them off and the second herd perished as well.
Unfortunately, they had used most of their money to purchase the second herd, which had been quite large. They’d purchased several herds from Clan Elliot and Clan Kerr, just over the Scots border, and they’d traded much of their fine plate and gold for the beasts, confident they could grow the herd and make their money back easily. It had been the decision of the head of the house, Lord Thurstyn de Dere, who had become ill shortly after the purchase and died one stormy night.
Thurstyn never lived to see his two sons struggle to keep the herds alive and didn’t live to see what both men had considered their failure. The younger son, Torstyn, had suffered even further despair when he’d fallen from his horse and broken his spine. A year later, he considered himself a worthless cripple, wasting away within the walls of Bardon, as the eldest son, Tyren, had assumed the entire burden for supporting his family and those dependent upon Bardon Castle. There was no more agriculture and no more livestock, their usual trade. People began to starve and fear took hold, but Tyren, made of strong and resourceful stock, wouldn’t surrender. Centuries of ancestors were watching him and he was determined not to be the one to fail.
He couldn’t.
And the Greenhead Ghost made his first appearance.
Now, in what used to be his father’s solar, Tyren sat at an old table before a warm fire, carefully counting out the coinage he’d managed to steal earlier that day. Some of his men had stolen the purses from some of the escort that had unsuccessfully protected the old woman in her iron carriage. Those men had turned the purses over to Tyren to put into a larger collective pot.
That was how Tyren and his men worked; everything they harvested (for that was the word they used because Tyren didn’t want his mother to know what he did to earn their money) went into one fund that everyone took a piece of. Tyren was always fair and he rewarded those men who took great risk. Even now, he sat over the table, counting out the twenty-one piles of coins that would go to everyone dependent upon Bardon Castle. His men, who were a collection of knights and soldiers, plus smithies, the tanners, the stable master, and then a distribution of coins to the families who still lived in and around the castle whose livelihood had been dependent upon the cattle trade. As he counted out the last of the coinage, a tall and blonde man entered the solar.
Tyren glanced up, noting the flash of a grin on the man who had just entered. “I see that smile,” he muttered, turning back to his coins. “You know this was a good haul. We may not have collected the chest of booty we had expected, but it was a good harvest nonetheless.”
Etienne de Gare, a long-time friend of Tyren’s, looked at the piles of coins on the table. “Gold and silver,” he said, impressed. “I had not seen the gold. Where did you get that?”
Tyren was in the process of setting aside the gold coins. “From the old woman herself,” he said. “She carried twenty-two gold coins in her purse. Can you believe that?”
Etienne lifted his eyebrows. “Foolish bird,” he said. “That kind of money needs to be hidden away, not carried so recklessly.”
Tyren grunted. “Had she not been reckless, we would not be reaping the rewards of her foolishness,” he pointed out. “Between the purses that the men brought in and the old woman’s purse, we have twenty-four gold coins and fifty-eight silver deniers. It is my intention to have the smithy cut the gold coins in two; that way, we have twice as many to distribute. In fact, I think that I may have enough to buy a small herd at this point. I have been saving the money for nearly two years now. I believe I have enough.”
Etienne sighed faintly. “Mayhap you have enough, but where will you graze them?” he asked. “We have been through this, Tyren. All of the good grazing land is poison.”
Tyren stopped counting the money and sat back in his chair. “We know the grazing land that we used to run the cattle on is poison,” he said. “But there is other land. There is an entire forest near the Grindon Lough that should be good grazing land. We never ran the cattle up that far.”
Etienne snorted softly. “We never ran them up that far because of the Scots,” he said. “You know they have a penchant for crossing the border and raiding the livestock that far north. Do you want to risk them stealing cattle?”
Tyren looked at his friend, seriously. “We will put guards on the cattle,” he said. “Truthfully, Etienne, I do not want to harvest other people’s property for the rest of my life. We only do this so we can eat and survive, but at some point, I fear we shall be caught and if we are, we will hang. I am a knight and a very good one, but I have compromised everything to feed those dependent upon Bardon Castle.”
Etienne put up a hand in supplication; he knew that robbing travelers was not something Tyren enjoyed. It was necessary. But he considered it dishonorable and Tyren was not, by nature, a dishonorable man. Etienne felt some pity for the principled thief.
“I know,” he said, trying to soothe Tyren before the man grew agitated. “I have told you this before, Tyren; there is no shame in what we do. If we want to live, it is necessary. But you are correct in that there must be an end to our adventures at some point. We cannot do this forever and Bardon cannot survive on the generous donations of those we target. But until that day comes when we cease harvesting, the situation is as you see it. It is something that must be done.”
Tyren turned back to his table of coins. “But it will not be done forever,” he repeated. “For my mother’s sake and for my brother’s sake, I must return to an honorable profession as soon as I can. And what if I take a wife? She cannot know that her husband is an outlaw. It would be a shameful thing.”
Etienne looked curiously at the man. “A wife?” he repeated. “Since when do you speak on taking a wife?”
Tyren stopped fussing with the coins. He scratched his head nervously. “I am of age.”
“You have been of age for ten years.”
Tyren chuckled. “That is true,” he said. “But she has not been of age for ten years.”
Etienne had an idea of who he was speaking of. He wasn’t surprised, really. The subject of the lovely Valeria de Velt had come up many times in the past few months and Etienne knew that Tyren had been invited to a celebration honoring the woman’s eighteenth birthday tomorrow evening. The messenger boy had come to Bardon Castle last month to invite Tyren, his family, and his men, but Tyren hadn’t really said anything more about it since that day. Until now. Now, it was clear he’d been thinking on it. Etienne pulled up a stool to the table.
“Ah,” he said. “And now we speak of Lady Valeria again. Ty, the woman has been of marriageable age for at least three years. You have visited her many times during those years. Why have you not offered for her hand before now?”
Tyren’s smile faded. “Because three years ago was when we began losing our herds,” he reminded him. “Father died, Torstyn was injured, and I had enough of a burden to bear without adding a wife to it. Besides, I could not properly provide for her. She would have married into chaos.”
Etienne listened carefully. “So you seek to ask for her hand now?”
Tyren shrugged. “Things are better now,” he said. “I have money. I plan to purchase another herd. Things are much better now so I see no reason not to approach Mars de Velt about his daughter’s hand. Besides… if I do not do it soon, someone else will.”
Etienne was forced to agree. “The sooner, the better,” he said. “Then you will be attending her celebration tomorrow evening?”
Tyren glanced at him. “You remember the invitation?”
“I do.”
Tyren nodded his head. “I will be attending,” he said. Then, he reached over to the pile that contained the old woman’s purse and a few other stolen items. “In fact, I will bring her a gift in honor of her birthday.”
Etienne watched as he pulled forth a rather spectacular ri
ng made from very dark gold with a rather oddly colored stone. It was a big stone of a reddish-black color but not something Etienne recognized. He peered at it as Tyren held it up to the light from the taper next to him.
“What is that?” he asked Tyren. “It looks like a ruby of some kind? It is rather dark.”
Tyren was inspecting the ring, too. “Odd,” he said. “When I took it from the old woman, it was black. I thought it was onyx. But now it seems to be changing color to a deep red. Indeed, that is quite astonishing.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because the old woman said it would turn from black to a red color when I took it from her. I did not believe her, of course, but it looks as if she were correct. It did, indeed, change color. And then she told me a legend about it.”
“What legend?”
Tyren’s focus was on the ring, his eyes glittering as he inspected it. “The old woman said that the ring carries a curse with it,” he said. “It must belong to a woman, she said. It is not meant for a man. If the owner does not find love before she has seen twenty-five summers, the red stone will turn to black and she will never find love. She told me not to give it to any lady unless I wanted the curse to become hers.”
Etienne lifted his eyebrows, concerned with such a curse. “And you intend to give it to Lady Valeria, a woman who would become your wife?”
Tyren gave him a rather impish grin. “I fear no curse,” he said. “Besides, if I give it to her, it will stay red, always, because she will be with me. There is nothing to fear.”
He was making light of something that Etienne took seriously. A cursed ring. But Etienne didn’t argue with him. Tyren had never believed in curses or bad fortune or goblins. Something about the man was inherently logical above all else. Stubbornly so. Of all the people to be holding a cursed ring, Etienne thought. He sincerely hoped that the man wasn’t about to saddle Lady Valeria with something horrible.
Ever My Love: The Lore of the Lucius Ring (The Legend of the Theodosia Sword Book 2) Page 4
