The Splendid Hour: The Executioner Knights Book 7 Read online

  “Giles de Broase and Walter de Lacy have angered me for the last time,” he said. “They have both escaped to Ireland, leaving a good portion of the Welsh Marches in my hands. Ludlow Castle in particular. Hugh de Mortimer has been discovered to have been expanding his castle without my permission and as of last month, I have sent his neighbor, Fitz Walter, to claim it. It is now mine.”

  The de Lacy and de Broase news wasn’t of any great surprise to William, whose own lordship was in Pembroke, Wales, but the comment on Hugh de Mortimer had him listening carefully.

  “Ludlow and Wigmore are under Crown control?” he asked.

  John nodded. “Aye,” he said. “So are Knighton and Risbury Castles. De Lohr should know some, if not all of this, especially about Ludlow that has been in my hands for a while now.”

  “And why do you tell me this?”

  John leaned back in the chair, his dark eyes fixed on William. “Because you will go to de Lohr with a proposal,” he said. “You will offer him Ludlow and Wigmore in exchange for his support.”

  The Marshal had a feeling this proposal was coming and he was prepared. “He will never give you his support for those properties.”

  “I will add Risbury and Knighton.”

  “Never.”

  “Then I will give all four of them to des Roches and he will bring his French allies to the Marches,” John said flatly. “How will de Lohr like it when the Marches are overrun with French warlords?”

  It was a brilliant, nasty move. The Marshal could see that and he had to admit that he was impressed by it. But it was incredibly dastardly, as befitting John. He knew better than almost anyone how to make deals and how to coerce men into his bidding but, in this case, it wasn’t going to work.

  It was going to end him.

  The Marshal took a long, deep breath.

  “Then I hope you are prepared for war,” he said quietly. “De Lohr will not take that and well you know it. He’ll bring his allies in and they will erase des Roches and whoever he happens to bring into those properties, and then he will send you their heads. I suspect he will also ally with the Welsh warlords and then you will have a massive war on your hands. If you think to keep the Marches with this proposition, it will be your undoing, Your Grace. De Lohr, his allies, and the Welsh will not stand for it.”

  “And you?”

  “I will not stand for it, either.”

  That forced John to rethink his strategy, which he was loath to do. He wasn’t a man who liked to be forced into anything, but he knew he’d pushed. Perhaps a little too far.

  But it was still salvageable.

  “Then do this,” he said. “Tell de Lohr I will give him all four castles if he, and the other rebels, will pull out of London. I speak not of excommunication or the illegalities of the Great Charter – but I want the rebels out of London. If he will do this, I will give him the Marcher castles.”

  That was a little more reasonable, but still possibly difficult. Christopher was a leader of the rebels, but he didn’t make unilateral decisions. There were others involved.

  “The castles for London?” William repeated, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “It is possible he will accept that,” he said. “But you have the papal legate here threatening to excommunicate these men if they do not declare the charter you signed as invalid. That is not going to simply go away, Your Grace. What will you do about that?”

  John held up a finger. “One step at a time,” he said. “Get de Lohr to agree to pull the rebels out of London and I will give him those properties.”

  “The other rebel leaders will want concessions, too. You cannot gift de Lohr and not expect the others to obey when there is nothing in it for them.”

  He had a point.

  John frowned.

  “Then I will prepare a list of gifts for the leaders of this… this travesty,” he said with disgust. “I will promise them all something in exchange for removing their armies from London. Properties in Ireland, in Wales… I will make it worth their while. Will you tell de Lohr?”

  William wasn’t keen on any of this, but he, more than anyone alive, knew how politics worked. Bargains, bribes, and promises… nations were made in such a way.

  So was peace.

  “Very well,” he said after a moment. “I will tell him. But I suggest you remove des Roches and your guard before there is another flare up between David de Lohr and someone who looks at him in a manner he does not like. Heads will be rolling before we can blink an eye.”

  John stood up from his chair, smiling at The Marshal. “My true and faithful friend,” he said. But it was all for show. He didn’t mean it. “I knew you would see the reason in all of this. But just so you are aware, de Winter his hosting a feast tonight and I have been invited, as a guest of honor. Truth be told, I invited myself so he could not deny me, but tell de Lohr and the others that I should like them to attend as well. Mayhap we will be able to speak further under more pleasant surroundings.”

  The Marshal looked queerly at him. “You are inviting your enemies to sup with you?” he said. “Your Grace, that cannot end well.”

  John shrugged. “It will because you will tell them they must come,” he said. “You will tell de Lohr of my proposal and he may come and discuss it with me. I am not unreasonable, Pembroke. They will see that.”

  It was untrue. So much of that was untrue. Even as John spoke of peace, he had French mercenaries preparing to sail for England. Some already had. When he spoke of des Roches bringing French warlords to the Marches, he wasn’t joking. He meant it. While he pretended to want peace with his warlords, his actions spoke of another wish altogether. He didn’t want peace – he wanted surrender.

  And The Marshal knew it.

  Still, he didn’t contradict him. He simply nodded and John snorted in a way that suggested he felt that he had gained the upper hand. He proceeded to follow the king into the hall where all of the warlords were missing, but he knew they hadn’t run off. They had simply left the chamber when the king had, which was wise. Without The Marshal or the king’s presence, tensions would flare if someone said the wrong thing.

  As John instructed his guard to depart, The Marshal looked to Daveigh and Bric to discover where the warlords had gone to. It was Bric who took the lead, silently beckoning the man to follow him. But along with The Marshal, Daveigh and Cullen de Nerra came, too. They had all been part of The Marshal’s spy ring and in a normal world, they still were. When The Marshal saw that he was being followed, he wasn’t troubled. He let them.

  Better they hear John’s proposals from his own lips.

  It was something that would affect them all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “If I accept Ludlow, then I keep it out of John’s hands,” Christopher said to David. “Wigmore, too. That castle is strategic and it is enormous, so I shall give one castle to Peter and the other one to Sherry. I’ll garrison the whole damned southern Marches to keep John from it. If he thinks giving me these properties will cause me to change my mind about him, then he has gone mad.”

  David couldn’t disagree. It was well into the night at the feast at Hollyhock House in the same hall that only hours earlier had seen the unhappy king and his rebellious warlords face off. At this feast, however, with the presence of women, the men were behaving themselves. Female presence always made the men behave themselves.

  Which was why Christopher had sent word to his London townhome for his wife and daughters to join them.

  Dustin, the Countess of Hereford and Worcester, arrived in the company of her older daughters. Christin, Lady de Sherrington, was one of them. She was married to Alexander and, for a time, had been one of William Marshal’s best spies. A beautiful woman with dark hair and her mother’s gray eyes, she had retired from the spy game in order to have children, but she was still as wise and cunning as ever. When she entered Hollyhock House, her husband was quick to claim her upon his arm. He hated to be far from her and her appearance at the feast was a welcome event.


  Two years younger than Christin was her sister, Brielle. Named after Marcus’ wife, Gabrielle, Brielle de Lohr had blossomed into an astonishing beauty. She looked exactly as her mother had in her youth – a thick mane of blonde hair, buxom and petite, but instead of Dustin’s gray eyes, she had deep brown ones when no one else in the family had. She was unmarried yet, and considered quite an eligible young woman, but for years she and Jax de Velt’s youngest son, Cassian, had their eyes on each other. Even as she entered the manse with her mother and sister, Cassian wasn’t far behind.

  He’d ridden escort all the way from Lonsdale House.

  No one would look at Brielle for fear of Cassian’s wrath.

  Cassian had gone to foster at Lioncross Abbey Castle, seat of Christopher de Lohr, at a young age, so he and Brielle had essentially grown up together. Jax was a very large man, as were his elder sons Cole and Julian, but Cassian had undergone a growth spurt when he was about nineteen years of age that made him taller than anyone. He’d sprouted up, bulked out, and become a beast of a man, and all of him a slave to a little blonde who equally adored him.

  Unfortunately, Christopher wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge anything between Brielle and the youngest de Velt son, and the mighty beast of a man who was Cassian was fearful to push his suit, so he bided his time… and stayed close to Brielle, wherever she went.

  As Cassian entered behind the women, his father was there to greet him. With Jax and Cassian embracing, Christopher pulled away from Marcus and David and went to greet his wife.

  “My lady,” he said with a warm gleam in his eyes. “You look ravishing, as usual.”

  Dustin de Lohr was a truly spectacular female specimen who had seen forty years and two. But to her husband, she was an ageless beauty who was much like a fine wine – the older she became, the better she looked, and Christopher was as smitten now as he was when he’d first met her. But she was also willful, stubborn, opinionated, and fiercely protective of her husband and family, which was why he wanted her at the feast.

  The situation, for them, could possibly be changing.

  He needed her counsel.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Dustin said coyly, fighting off a smirk.

  Christopher lifted her hand and kissed it. “You are welcome,” he said. “But did you wear that gown to seduce me? You know what happens when you wear it.”

  He was referring to the dark blue silk that displayed her full, white bosom most ably. She chuckled at her husband of over twenty years. “I do not need to wear this gown to seduce you,” she said. “If I wanted to do that, I would have worn nothing at all beneath it like I did in our younger years.”

  Christopher fought off a grin. “I do remember you doing something like that back when we only had five children.”

  “Now we have eight and I have stopped doing that for a reason. Every time I do, we have another child.”

  Christopher burst out laughing, kissing her hand again and finally her cheek. When he was finished, she removed her cloak, handing it over to a nearby servant as her gaze moved about the hall.

  “Where is Keeva?” she asked, referring to Daveigh’s wife. “I’ve not seen her in a very long time.”

  Christopher looked around for the de Winter’s Irish-born wife, spying her flame-hair inside the hall near the hearth.

  “She is over there,” he said. “But give me a moment, if you please. I brought you here for a reason.”

  Dustin lifted an eyebrow at him, her gray eyes fixed on him. “Not simply to shine?”

  He grinned. “Not entirely,” he said, looking over the heads of those crowding the entryway and the doorway to the great hall. He spied Peter, Alexander, and Marcus just inside the door and he emitted a low whistle, catching their attention. “I must speak with you and Peter and Marcus and Sherry.”

  Peter and Marcus started gravitating in his direction, followed by Alexander and Christin. Since Christin was savvy in the politics of England, Christopher didn’t mind that she joined the group as he took them into Daveigh’s small solar and shut the door. She was as astute as her husband, brother, and father, so her opinion was respected. Christopher was about to speak when the door abruptly opened and David entered.

  He shut the door behind him.

  “I want to be part of this,” he said to his brother. “Have you told Peter yet?”

  Christopher shook his head. “Not yet,” he said, looking to his eldest son. “I will make this brief. The Marshal has informed me that John wishes to make a bargain with the warlords holding London, starting with me. It would seem that de Broase and de Lacy have fallen out of favor, forfeiting several of their properties to the Crown, the larger ones being Ludlow Castle and Wigmore Castle.”

  Peter’s eyebrows rose. “Ludlow?” he repeated. “That massive place? And Wigmore? My God, those two are enormous. They hold a huge chunk of the Marches.”

  Christopher nodded. “I know,” he said. “John has offered me Ludlow and Wigmore along with Knighton and Risbury. That would nearly double my empire. But this comes at a price.”

  Marcus, who hadn’t heard any of this yet, was understandably wary. “What price, Chris?”

  Christopher looked at him. “That the rebels pull out of London,” he said. “I am not the only warlord he will be making an offer to, but I am the first. And, it seems, mayhap the biggest offer. He’ll grant me all four properties if I pull my army out and convince the other warlords to do the same.”

  “And if you refuse?”

  “Then he’ll give the properties to des Roches so the man can bring his French barons to the Marches,” he said. “We’ll be crawling with French bastards and God only knows what else. Either I accept the offer or I will spend the rest of John’s reign defending my borders and my vassals from des Roches and his scum.”

  Marcus usually kept his emotions in check, but even he was shocked at what he was hearing. “That is no choice at all,” he said strongly. “He’s threatening you.”

  “He is, indeed.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  Christopher shrugged. “What can I do?” he said. “It’s a strain on manpower and finances to keep five hundred men here in the city and I know it is a strain for the other warlords who continue to keep men here, so pulling them out would actually be a relief.”

  Marcus was thinking through to the long-term consequences. “And royal troops take the city once again.”

  Christopher nodded. “London belongs to the royals,” he said. “It always has, it always will. We held it to gain leverage against John so he would sign the Great Charter and he has.”

  “But he hasn’t held up any of the terms.”

  “Nor have we by not pulling out of the city when we said we would.”

  He had a point. The barons had agreed to withdraw from London as part of the terms of the Great Charter. Marcus snorted. “Then we cannot exactly condemn the king for doing what we are doing.”

  Christopher shrugged in agreement and Marcus shook his head, turning away as he pondered the situation. Christopher’s focus moved to Peter and Alexander once more.

  “It is my intention to agree to John’s proposal,” he said. “Peter, you shall be the garrison commander of Ludlow Castle. It will belong to you. Sherry, you will be the garrison commander of Wigmore. You both shall keep all of the tolls and taxes from the properties, paying me a quarter of the total yearly take. That will make you both quite wealthy. You are not, however, allowed to raise taxes without my approval, but we will discuss the terms more in detail before you assume your posts. Do you have any questions so far?”

  Peter and Alexander were somewhat stunned by the turn of events. Ludlow and Wigmore were without question two of the largest castles on the Marches, so this was a lucrative post for them both. It was Alexander who spoke up.

  “Who occupies the castles now?” he asked.

  “Fitz Walter,” Christopher replied. “When he turns those castles over to me, he will take the men he brought with
him. It is my understanding that de Broase left some of his army behind, so there should already be a contingent of men, but we will reinforce that with de Lohr men. Understand me well – once I get my hands on these castles, John shall not get them back, no matter what happens. They are mine and will remain mine until the end of all things, so your task will be to hold those castles for the House of de Lohr. Forever, if need be.”

  Now that the shock was wearing off, the pleasure was evident on Peter and Alexander’s faces. “Who shall man Knighton and Risbury?” Peter asked. “Those are substantial garrisons.”

  Christopher stroked his chin. “I realize that,” he said. “I was thinking of sending Cassian to Knighton and possibly Addax al-Kort to Risbury. You remember Addax and Essien, Marcus? The Kitara princes?”

  Marcus looked at him sharply, disbelief in his expression. “Are those two serving you now?”

  Christopher grinned. “Those young men we took under our wing and helped train on the sands of The Levant those many years ago have never lost their loyalty to England because of us,” he said. “They were serving a Flemish count before they ended up with de Velt. When I heard about that, I demanded they come to Lioncross and serve me, and they’ve been there ever since.”

  He was speaking about two young men from a country far to the east of The Levant who had fled their country in a hostile takeover. Their father, the king, had been killed, so Addax and Essien were forced to flee. They made their way to The Levant via a merchant caravan and ended up under the care of Christian knights – Christopher de Lohr and Marcus Burton. When the wars were over, they were separated from their Christian mentors and traveled to Ghent where they were trained and knighted. They were brilliant men and fine warriors, and Marcus was quite pleased to hear that they had turned up again.

  “That is excellent news,” he said. “I have always wondered what became of them. I’m very glad to hear they have made their way to England.”

  “And I,” he said. “They are excellent knights, both of them.”

  “I look forward to seeing them again, soon.”