“Confidentially, I was told that he had a hand in Arthur of Brittany’s death,” Maxton said after a moment. “No one can seem to locate either boy, in fact, though I believe Lothar has tried to find Richard’s bastard. That’s what I heard, anyway. And he has given up. It is as if both boys have simply vanished, with fates unknown.”
“Both heirs to the throne, both missing and presumed killed by de Lara.”
“Exactly.”
Cullen pondered the darker rumors that had been flying about England for the past few years, many of them revolving around Sean. “They call him the Lord of the Shadows now,” he said. “The man has become part of John’s darkness.”
Maxton waved him off. “All men must choose their own paths and far be it from us to weigh and measure what those paths might be,” he said. “Sean de Lara is not my concern. My venture into Wales and Ireland is. How do you suppose my wife is going to accept any of this?”
Cullen scratched his head. “She is not,” he said flatly. “Mayhap send for your father to come and stay with her while you are away. He loves the woman and his granddaughters. Why not ask Magnus?”
Maxton thought on his father, a man he’d not spoken to in many years until his marriage to Andressa. At her urging, they both went to Loxbeare Cross Castle to tell him of their marriage, and found an old and lonely old man who had been very surprised to see them. His brother, Emmett, had been welcoming, and Magnus had been surprisingly welcoming also, especially when he saw that Maxton had married.
It had been a shock that his wayward son had finally taken a wife.
Much had been hashed out the day Maxton had arrived at his childhood home. He remembered that day very well. He had spoken to his father about so many things, asking the old man why he’d never responded to his missives, only to be told that Magnus had been too overcome with sadness and despair at Maxton’s absence to do it. He burned the missives, hoping that would ease his sorrow at a son who never wished to return home. He thought if he ignored the issue, it would go away.
It didn’t.
Oddly enough, there was no disapproval for Maxton’s reputation. In fact, Magnus had been proud of his son who had fought with Richard in The Levant, and who had returned to England and wed an heiress. So many things had been discussed during that visit, and it was a relationship that was still being restored, even more so when Maxton was informed that his little sister, Lucy, had died in childbirth with her first child a few years before.
Maxton had wept deeply for the loss of his sister.
Which was why his own daughters were perhaps so precious to him, and to his father, too. Magnus had traveled to Chalford Hill for the birth of his younger two granddaughters, and he came to visit them at least twice a year. Maxton never thought he’d enjoy a good relationship with his father, ever, but time and understanding – and the addition of four women into his life – had changed all of that.
Life, as he knew it, had changed altogether.
“Mayhap I shall ask my father to come and stay with my family,” he finally said. He began to hear the cries of his children wafting through the lancet window and when he went to peer from the window to the bailey below, he could see them playing with the friendly dogs that wandered the bailey. They did so love the dogs, and the sight made him smile. “In fact, I shall go ask my wife if she would like for my father to stay with her while I am away. Mayhap that will soften the blow of my departure.”
Cullen smiled wryly. “I doubt it. But best of luck.”
Maxton couldn’t disagree with him, but he had to try. With thoughts of his father on his mind, he quit the master’s chamber where they were, making his way out of the keep and heading out to the bailey where his children were rolling in the dirt with the dogs.
A more joyous thing to see, he could have never imagined. As Maxton came upon his wife, who was standing there in a dress the color of wine, with beautiful embellishments around the elbows and wrists and neck, he took a moment simply to look at her. He couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been part of him, and he of her. For a man who had spent his life engaged in dark and dirty deeds, the fact that he’d found peace and love was something that still baffled him, and there wasn’t one day that he didn’t give thanks for all that he had, for the children that he had, and for the woman who was his entire reason for living.
For a man who had been wandering and searching his entire life, wondering if there was more to life than what he’d known, looking into Andressa’s sweet face told him everything he needed to know.
The Executioner Knight had found a love story for the ages.
Finally, he was home.
* THE END *
Children of Maxton and Andressa
House of de Long
Danae (Duh-NAY)
Melisandra
Ceri
Magnus
Aeron
Kane
Karis
Madoc
The Executioner Knights:
By the Unholy Hand
The Mountain Dark
Starless
A Time of End
DEVIL’S DOMINION
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
This novel is dedicated to my wonderful husband, Rob, who puts up with me when I go into the writing cave for weeks on end. It’s also dedicated to my wonderful friends who do the same thing – watch me go into the writing cave and wait patiently for me to come out again and interact with the normal world.
Lastly, it’s dedicated to my fabulous editor, Scott Moreland, who goes above and beyond every time.
And to my readers… it’s dedicated to you, too! Without you, none of this is possible!
Hugs,
Kathryn
PROLOGUE
1179 A.D., Late Fall
Four Crosses Castle
Welsh Marches
“The gatehouse has been breached!”
The small lad heard his mother issue the words, such panic pouring out of her mouth that it was difficult to understand her. Terror vomited out of every pore in her body. But the small lad understood little of what was causing her such fear. All he knew was that he and his sister and mother had been locked up in the keep of Four Crosses Castle, a castle that had belonged to his family for generations, for two straight days. Food was running in short supply and he had been hungry all day because of it. A little bread and cheese was all his mother had been able to give him and his sister that morning and they’d had nothing else since.
He also knew that there was a great siege going on, great projectiles and war machines trying to break down the walls of Four Crosses, and they couldn’t chance opening the keep in any fashion, not even to accept the wounded that had been shoved into the stables, stables that were now burning. The wounded were burning even as men struggled to move them out of the stables, filling the air with the heavy, greasy smell of burning human flesh.
But the young lad didn’t know what the smell was; he just knew it made his nose wrinkle up. It also made his belly ache, like he wanted to vomit forth but couldn’t. After two days of little food, there wasn’t much to come up anyway.
“Come, Bretton,” Lady Brethwyn de Llion grasped her five year old son by the arm, pulling the boy along as she ran for the chamber door. Her daughter, two years older than Bretton, delayed them slightly by going to grab her poppet, causing her mother to scream. “Ceri, come! Come now!”
The little girl scrambled after her mother and brother, following them out of the chamber and down the dark, narrow stairs that spiraled to the next level. There were servants on that level, waiting for them in the darkness, men and women who were weeping and whispering fearfully. Once Lady de Llion reached the group, she gestured frantically to the small hall off to the left.
“Down into the kitchens below and out through the postern gate,” she hissed. “Hurry! There is no time to waste!”
She dashed off, dragging her children along behind her as the servants followed in a panic
. It was a great rush into the small hall with its tall hearth and hungry dogs, and on to the trap door cut into the floor that led by ladder to the kitchens below. The trap door had been propped up, tied off with a piece of rope to hold it firm. Lady de Llion put her children on the ladder first, helping them down, as the servants hovered around them and pushed their way onto the ladder once Lady de Llion followed the children.
Even though they had been frenzied, the group had been orderly until a great banging was suddenly heard upon the keep entry door. Like terrified animals, everyone froze for a moment, listening, realizing quickly that it was the enemy army attempting to break their way into the keep. Order dissolved and the servants began shoving each other out of the way, making their way down the ladder, pushing and falling through the hole into the kitchens below. One of the servants, an old man who tended Lord de Llion, fell on top of Ceri.
The little girl was nearly crushed beneath him and Lady de Llion screamed, kicking the man off her daughter and gathering the child into her arms. Ceri was nearly unconscious, badly injured, and cried out when she tried to breathe because it hurt. Lady de Llion was beside herself as she kneeled on the dirt floor, clutching her child against her.
“You fool!” she screeched at the servant, who had broken his arm in the fall. “You have killed her! Damn you!”
The old servant was weeping at what he had done, holding his broken arm against his body in a painful gesture. Bretton stood next to his mother, watching the situation with big eyes, having no real idea what had happened but knowing now that the ordeal was becoming increasingly frightening. They were running, running from something terrible. It was something terrible that they had feared for two days and the terror was tangible now, worse than ever. He could nearly taste it. He wanted his father, a man upon whom all things calmed and comforted. He missed him. He tugged on his mother’s arm.
“Mama?” he asked. “Where is Papa?”
Lady de Llion wept, clutching her daughter in one arm and reaching for her son with the other. She thrust the boy towards an older woman.
“Rosalie, take him,” she begged. “Take him and run. Take him far, far away from here and do not return, no matter what. Do you understand me?”
The older woman with the missing teeth grasped the boy, who was more intent on staying with his mother. In fact, he fought against the older woman for the privilege.
“Aye, my lady,” the older woman said, finally picking the boy up, who was kicking and screaming. “But you must come. Stand up and carry the lass! We will all help you!”
Lady de Llion held her little girl tightly, who now had bright red blood about her lips that were turning shades of blue. She was gasping for every breath, growing weaker by the moment.
“Nay,” Lady de Llion sobbed. “She is… my sweet Ceri is dying. And my husband! He is dead, too!”
One servant broke away from the group and threw open the bolt of the heavy iron door leading out into the kitchen yard beyond as the others hovered around Lady de Llion.
“My lady, please,” the woman holding Bretton begged. “Come with us!”
Lady de Llion had already given up the fight. She wasn’t a strong woman in the best of times and now, with the great jaws of defeat snapping at her, she was more inclined to surrender than to resist. She shook her head violently, her wimple coming loose and spilling forth dark hair.
“There is no hope,” she muttered. “De Velt has won. He has put my husband to the stake and soon he will put me to the stake. But I cannot allow it, do you hear? I will not!”
With that, she stood up, carrying her daughter with her, and moved to the butcher block that stood big and heavy in the center of the kitchen. All manner of butcher knives hung from an iron frame overhead and she grabbed a long, slender, and wicked-looking knife that was used to filet meat from the bone. Without hope, without any comfort or sanity whatsoever, Lady de Llion plunged the knife into Ceri’s small chest, stilling the little girl forever. As the servants screamed and moved to stop her, she turned the knife on herself.
Bretton saw the entire incident. It was surreal, beyond the comprehension of the small child, and he was too shocked to utter a sound. He just stared at his sister as her blood ran bright red upon the dirt of the kitchen, mingling with his mother’s blood from a slit throat. It was a horrific scene, but one not unknown in the annals of a de Velt attack. Whenever the man took the offensive, he left no living body in his wake.
Bretton only had a few moments of seeing his mother and sister in their blood bath before Rosalie was stealing him from the kitchen, racing through the dark and bloody night to the postern gate that led down the eastern slope of Four Crosses, down a narrow and treacherous path, through thickets of trees, to a stream below that fed into the castle’s water supply. Others followed in her wake.
It was dark down there, shielded from the castle above by a thick canopy of branches overhead. Bretton, the shock of his mother and sister’s death sinking deep, had begun to weep but Rosalie put her hand over his mouth to still the sound. They could hear men behind them, de Velt’s men, and they were desperate to quiet the boy. The group of refugees plopped into the stream, following its path as it ran through the vale, hiding their tracks from those who would follow. Rosalie carried Bretton until the boy grew heavy and then she passed him to another man, the castle smithy, who carried the sniffling lad for another hour until they felt safe enough to clamor out of the stream.
It was a desperate flight in the dead of night, feeling de Velt’s death-grip that had come upon them all. The land was hilly and rough here and the small group struggled through it with only a sliver moon above to light their way. The smithy, in the lead, ended up on a goat path that wound its way up a small mountain to a relatively flat summit. They had to gain their bearings in this dark land, to determine where to go to safety, but a sight on the eastern horizon caught their attention.
They could see flames in the distance, atop a mountain, and they knew that it was Four Crosses Castle. De Velt didn’t normally burn the castles he confiscated so the refugees of Four Crosses could only imagine that someone, mayhap Lord de Llion himself, had set the castle ablaze. There was no way of knowing who had actually caused the blaze, but one thing was certain: Four Crosses Castle, as they knew it, was gone forever, destroyed by a man whose bloodlust was second only to his evil. Satan himself trembled in fear of Jax de Velt and his apocalyptic destruction. No man survived it. Those who stood on the mountaintop, watching the flames in the distance, knew they were among a very select few. God had been with them this night because they, in fact, had survived.
Gentle tears filled the cold night air, tears from the few women who now realized they were alive, now realized they were homeless. It was much to bear. As the servants began to discuss what they should do now, where they should go, Bretton stood and watched his castle burn.
His papa was there, his mother and sister, too. All he loved was burning before him. He was sad, terrified, and overwhelmed with the course the night had taken. He wasn’t sure what to feel any longer. He was simply numb, as numb as a child could be. All he knew was that a man had caused all of this horror and destruction, a terrible man of terrible reputation, and that man’s name was de Velt. Ajax de Velt. It was a name seared into his brain, never to be forgotten.
It was a name he learned to hate. Hatred would breed revenge. Even at his young age, he could feel an unalterable sense of vengeance.
CHAPTER ONE
The month of May, 1205 A.D.
Alberbury Priory
Shropshire, England (the Welsh Marches)
The alarm had come after Vespers when everyone was settling down for the evening and soft prayers were being uttered throughout the cloister. The flames from a few lit tapers danced in the darkness, casting shadows upon the wall, tapers that were quickly doused by nuns who were in a panic. Women in coarse woolen garments had raced through the priory, spreading fear along with them like a great, vast blanket of doom. Something te
rrible had come to their door, something that did not recognize the sanctity of the church, and the only thing left for them to do was flee. Their only defense, the shield of religion, had been destroyed. Death had come to Alberbury.
In the novice’s dormitory that smelled of lye and smoke, a palpable sense of terror filled the long and cavernous room as the Mother Prioress and several senior nuns flooded in, rousing the neophytes from their beds. These women were in training to become the brides of Christ, living spartan lives and being taught that discipline and suffering were the only true paths to God. Clad only in a rough woolen sleeping shift that they had made with their own hands from wool that had come from the priory’s herd of sheep, the young women struggled out of their beds.
“What is the matter, Mother?” a young woman gasped. “What has happened?”
The Mother Prioress, a very old woman who was, in fact, a distant member of the royal family, grabbed the girl by the arm and very nearly yanked the limb out of its socket.
“No questions,” she hissed. “Thou must do as thou art told. We must leave this place now.”
The reply only bred more fear and confusion. “Please, Mother,” another girl said as she gathered a worn cloak from the stool next to her. “Will you please tell us what has happened? Why must we leave?”
The old prioress didn’t look at her charge. In fact, she didn’t look at any of them. There were eleven altogether, young women from the finest families throughout England, and it was her duty to keep them safe. But it was a duty that she could quite possibly fail at and the thought scared her to death. The proud old woman had never failed at anything. As she opened her mouth to chastise yet another question, a massive crash could be heard back in the abbey, as if the very walls were coming down. The young novices looked terrified while the older nuns simply appeared sick; sick because their world, their lovely and pious world, was about to come crumbling down around them.
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