The mountain dark, p.1
The Mountain Dark, page 1
THE MOUNTAIN DARK
A Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
Book Two in the Executioner Knights Series
The Unholy Trinity
© Copyright 2019 by Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
Kindle Edition
Text by Kathryn Le Veque
Cover by Kim Killion
Edited by Scott Moreland
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.
Kathryn Le Veque Novels
Medieval Romance:
De Wolfe Pack Series:
Warwolfe
The Wolfe
Nighthawk
ShadowWolfe
DarkWolfe
A Joyous de Wolfe Christmas
Serpent
A Wolfe Among Dragons
Scorpion
Dark Destroyer
The Lion of the North
Walls of Babylon
StormWolfe
BlackWolfe
The de Russe Legacy:
The Falls of Erith
Lord of War: Black Angel
The Iron Knight
Beast
The Dark One: Dark Knight
The White Lord of Wellesbourne
Dark Moon
Dark Steel
A de Russe Christmas Miracle
The de Lohr Dynasty:
While Angels Slept
Rise of the Defender
Steelheart
Shadowmoor
Silversword
Spectre of the Sword
Unending Love
Archangel
Lords of East Anglia:
While Angels Slept
Godspeed
Great Lords of le Bec:
Great Protector
House of de Royans:
Lord of Winter
To the Lady Born
Lords of Eire:
Echoes of Ancient Dreams
Blacksword
The Darkland
Ancient Kings of Anglecynn:
The Whispering Night
Netherworld
Battle Lords of de Velt:
The Dark Lord
Devil’s Dominion
Bay of Fear
Reign of the House of de Winter:
Lespada
Swords and Shields
De Reyne Domination:
Guardian of Darkness
With Dreams
The Fallen One
House of d’Vant:
Tender is the Knight (House of d’Vant)
The Red Fury (House of d’Vant)
The Dragonblade Series:
Fragments of Grace
Dragonblade
Island of Glass
The Savage Curtain
The Fallen One
Great Marcher Lords of de Lara
Lord of the Shadows
Dragonblade
House of St. Hever
Fragments of Grace
Island of Glass
Queen of Lost Stars
Lords of Pembury:
The Savage Curtain
Lords of Thunder: The de Shera Brotherhood Trilogy
The Thunder Lord
The Thunder Warrior
The Thunder Knight
The Great Knights of de Moray:
Shield of Kronos
The Gorgon
The House of De Nerra:
The Promise
The Falls of Erith
Vestiges of Valor
Realm of Angels
Highland Warriors of Munro:
The Red Lion
Deep Into Darkness
The House of de Garr:
Lord of Light
Realm of Angels
Saxon Lords of Hage:
The Crusader
Kingdom Come
High Warriors of Rohan:
High Warrior
The House of Ashbourne:
Upon a Midnight Dream
The House of D’Aurilliac:
Valiant Chaos
The House of De Dere:
Of Love and Legend
St. John and de Gare Clans:
The Warrior Poet
The House of de Bretagne:
The Questing
The House of Summerlin:
The Legend
The Kingdom of Hendocia:
Kingdom by the Sea
The Executioner Knights:
By the Unholy Hand
The Promise (also Noble Knights of de Nerra)
The Mountain Dark
Starless
A Time of End
Contemporary Romance:
Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Series:
Valley of the Shadow
The Eden Factor
Canyon of the Sphinx
The American Heroes Anthology Series:
The Lucius Robe
Fires of Autumn
Evenshade
Sea of Dreams
Purgatory
Other non-connected Contemporary Romance:
Lady of Heaven
Darkling, I Listen
In the Dreaming Hour
River’s End
The Fountain
Sons of Poseidon:
The Immortal Sea
Pirates of Britannia Series (with Eliza Knight):
Savage of the Sea by Eliza Knight
Leader of Titans by Kathryn Le Veque
The Sea Devil by Eliza Knight
Sea Wolfe by Kathryn Le Veque
Note: All Kathryn’s novels are designed to be read as stand-alones, although many have cross-over characters or cross-over family groups. Novels that are grouped together have related characters or family groups. You will notice that some series have the same books; that is because they are cross-overs. A hero in one book may be the secondary character in another.
There is NO reading order except by chronology, but even in that case, you can still read the books as stand-alones. No novel is connected to another by a cliff hanger, and every book has an HEA.
Series are clearly marked. All series contain the same characters or family groups except the American Heroes Series, which is an anthology with unrelated characters.
For more information, find it in A Reader’s Guide to the Medieval World of Le Veque.
Author’s Note
We’re in the Welsh Marches again, now with the Unholy Trinity.
I got such a kick out of writing this book because it starts out funny. I know that sounds kind of weird given the fact that this is an Executioner Knights book, but the opening scene was fun to write and that set the tone for the book.
I had a great time fleshing out Kress, who we saw fairly heavily in Book One of the series, but we didn’t really get to see what the man was capable of. He’s a de Rhydian, a new house in my universe, and it was a lot of fun to explore his family and background. They are related to the House of St. Hever, both families from up north Cumbria way, and I can see a lot of the St. Hever traits in Kress – he’s rather serious, very dedicated to duty, but he has a weakness he doesn’t discover until he meets our heroine – she, in fact, is the weakness.
And our heroine – what a pistol, as my mother would say. She’s a woman who has more royal blood in her than probably the King of England, but she’s also torn between two worlds, as you will see. She’s headstrong and feisty, and she knows what she wants in life. I love a Medieval woman with some spunk in her.
Our heroine, in fact, is a poetess. But not just any poetry, as you will discover. She likes to sell her poems disguised as prayer cards, which heavily came into fashion in the sixteenth century. Since this book is set a couple of hundred years before prayer cards really came into fashion (there’s no real evidence that they did NOT exist during this period, but if they did, they have long been lost), our heroine is on the cutting edge of “prayer cards” for the masses.
A few more things to note –
There is a passing mention in this book of a “very old tavern” in Nottingham, one that Alexander de Sherrington mentions as one he was very fond of. In fact, this tavern does exist – it’s called Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and it is the oldest pub in England, dating back to just after the Conquest. Crusaders stopped there before heading out on their Great Quest, so you can imagine the knights that have visited that tavern. It has an awesome history, and lots of fun trivia, so check it out when you get a chance.
www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk/pubs/nottinghamshire/ye-olde-trip-to-jerusalem
We see a few returning Le Veque characters in this tale in the form of Bric MacRohan (High Warrior), Achilles de Dere and Alexander de Sherr
Something of note about the de Shera stronghold outside of Chester – it’s called The Paladin. In folklore, a paladin is a knight of honor and strength. It’s associated with Charlemagne and his knights, men called paladins (like a Templar or a Hospitaller, indicating a certain status). The de Shera fortress is called The Paladin to indicate its strength and nobility, even though it’s a building.
The typical pronunciation guide:
Rhydian – RID-ee-in
Cadelyn – CADE-uh-lyn (three syllables)
Vendotia – Ven-DOE-sha
Tatius – TAE-shus
Atilius – uh-TILL-ee-us
Fabius – FAY-bee-us
Without further ado, I truly hope you enjoy Kress and Cadie’s story. It was a fun – and unusual one – to write.
Love,
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Kathryn Le Veque Novels
Author’s Note
An Example of the Poem Cards of Lady Dark
Epigraph
~ET REDDET PRETIUM (You shall pay the price)~
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Some of Lady Dark’s Immodest Poems
About Kathryn Le Veque
An Example of the Poem Cards of Lady Dark
“That very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service…”
From The Tempest
by William Shakespeare
~ ET REDDET PRETIUM (You shall pay the price) ~
May, Year of our Lord 1206
London
They were lingering in the shadows, waiting.
It was in the dead of night along a smaller avenue that bottlenecked into a street of taverns to the east side of London’s great walled city. They knew that the men they had been trailing all evening were going to be spilling out through this narrowed funnel of a road, out into the uneven, dusty streets that smelled of compost and animals.
That was the plan, in fact – lying in wait like predators for their prey to come forward.
In this case, it was a matter of honor.
Kress de Rhydian was at the head of the contingent in the shadows. An enormously muscled man with cropped, blond hair and eyes as cold as steel, he’d been the one shamed. Well, it really wasn’t only him, but he was the most affronted because he’d been the one most blatantly insulted. Those bastards from Northampton weren’t going to get away with it.
He would exact his revenge.
Cheaters. Those base-born churls were going to get their comeuppance and Kress was going to deliver it right to them, front and center. He and his companions had just come from a gambling den in the Ropery district near the River Thames, a den they’d been warned to stay away from but one that had the most beautiful women and the most delicious food, all of it designed to lure in high ranking knights and nobles who expected fine treatment.
It had worked. Too well. Kress and his friends, Achilles de Dere, Alexander “Sherry” de Sherrington, and Bric MacRohan had all been lured into a place only known as The Pox, which actually should have been their first clue that the establishment was something to stay away from, but they’d gone anyway, enjoying fine beef and women that smelled of flowers. At the gaming tables, they’d faced some Northampton knights in a game called Passe-dix, an ancient game of chance.
One rolled the dice and took one’s chances in the game but, in this case, the Northampton knights had brought their own die, which happened to be weighted. The more they tossed it, the more they won. It took Kress and his companions about ten rolls to figure out what was going on. Not that they were stupid, but they’d been drinking the very fine alcohol provided by The Pox and it had muddled their heads.
But they’d figured it out, eventually. And they would get even.
So now, they wait in the shadows, knowing that, at some point, the Northampton knights were going to have to come through this street in order to reach the numerous taverns and boarding houses that were up on Candlewick Street. Oddly enough, no one in Kress’ group was waiting with swords in hand. What they had in mind would be far more of a lesson than a blade through the gut.
And they waited.
The night passed and they could hear the sounds of the city around them, settling in for the night. There was a brothel on this narrowed street with a madam who was quite strict with her customers. They came in for the night and they remained for the night, as she didn’t leave her doors open all night so that thieves and cutthroats could rob her.
They could hear the woman shouting at some of the patrons who were being too loud with their drink and revelry, and then they could hear a couple fornicating as the woman urged the man to “plow her field”. That term set off Alexander, who started to laugh as the woman urged her customer to “plow harder”. He must have done a good job because the woman stopped begging and satisfied grunts followed. Alexander clapped silently for a job well done.
But Kress kept his divided attention to a minimum. He was determined not to lose sight of why they were really there, why they were standing outside in the damp night, waiting for those who had eschewed common decency to cheat anyone they could out of their hard-earned money. The crew from Northampton hadn’t only done it to Kress and his friends, but to anyone else they could manage to wrangle for a game of chance. There had been several that Kress had seen.
Now, their time was up.
After standing in the shadows for at least a couple of hours, the offenders finally decided to make an appearance. Extremely drunk, Kress and his friends could see the five Northampton knights as they headed into the narrowed avenue, stumbling and laughing. The madam from the brothel yelled at them through a window, but they drunkenly yelled in return.
Plug your putrid hole, harpy!
Alexander would have laughed again had he not been so focused on the knights who were about to fall into his orbit. Kress stood next to him, his big body tense, while across the avenue, they could see Achilles and Bric, both of them poised and waiting. The men had a plan, and knew what they had to do, so as the Northampton knights came within range, the trap was sprung.
The four knights rushed out into the darkened avenue. Bric, a massive Irish knight with a nasty temper, threw the first punch, knocking out the knight nearest him. That made the odds even at that point – four on four – and the knights from William Marshal’s stable went to work on the ambushed Northampton men.
Because the men from Northampton were so drunk, it truthfully wasn’t much of a fight, and that worked in Kress’ favor. They were uncoordinated, and falling over, so Kress and his men pushed the Northampton knights down into the dirt and began stripping them of everything on their body – boots, clothing, purses – everything. That had been the plan. When one knight, a heavyset man with ham-sized fists tried to fight back, Achilles, who was a very big man himself, put his booted foot on the man’s neck as he yanked off the man’s belt.
Breeches came off, followed by boots and tunics as the drunken Northampton knights tried to fight back. Everything was pulled right off of them. One man knocked himself cold in the struggle, leaving Bric to gleefully pull off all of the man’s clothing quite easily. In fact, everything was stripped off in a rather short amount of time, with two of the men unconscious and three of them struggling to figure out what was going on.
Soon, there were five naked and dirty men in the gutter as Kress, Achilles, Alexander, and Bric confiscated every shoe, every tunic, every weapon, and every purse. As their victims tried to stand, realizing they were without a stitch of clothing on, Kress faced them.
