THE MOUNTAIN DARK
A Medieval Romance
Book Two in the Executioner Knights Series
The Unholy Trinity
By Kathryn Le Veque
CHAPTER ONE
Farringdon House
London townhome of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke
The next day
“I’ve given themtheir clothing and their weapons.” An old man who was still powerful, still fully capable of death and destruction, spoke quietly. “Really, Kress. I understand and appreciate what you were trying to accomplish, but those are Northampton men. Enough insults and I could have the whole of Scotland down around me.”
Seated in the well-appointed and comfortable solar of Farringdon House, Kress had been facing the hearth during the course of his mild scolding. He was completely unrepentant, as were the others in the room. Bric, Achilles, and Alexander were all wholly unrepentant of what they’d done. Kress cast a disinterested glance in the Earl of Pembroke’s direction as the old man stood by the elaborate entry door.
“Appreciate, then, that I did not kill them for stealing, my lord,” he said. “They stole from everyone at that establishment. Someone had to punish them and if their liege has issue withthe punishment dealt, then mayhap he would not be so quick to judge if he knew his men are cheats and thieves.”
William grunted, mostly because he doubted the man Kress referred to, the King of Scotland who was also the Earl of Northampton, would take kindly to his knights being so terribly humiliated. “Andwhatwere you doing in such an establishment?” he wanted to know. “I would expect it from soldiers, but from you?”
Kress lifted his dark blond eyebrows. “We were bored.”
William Marshal stared at him and his short, perhaps all too honest, answer. With a guttural sigh, one of great displeasure at what his knights had done, he closed the doors behind him and came into the chamber, his gaze mostly on Kress as the man sat in front of the hearth looking as if he hadn’t slept in a week.
All displeasure aside at having to placate naked knights who had come to Farringdon House demanding their clothing, William had more important things on his mind and he needed Kress and the others in the chamber primed and focused.
He didn’t need gamblers who punished men by stealing their clothing.
“If you are bored, how fortunate that you have me to keep you occupied,” he said, using that tone that captured men’s attention. “The rest of you, gather ’round. I called you here for a reason and it was not to pay off men you had stripped of their dignities.”
Achilles and Alexander served The Marshal directly, but Bric was somewhat different. He served the House of de Winter, a strong and powerful ally of William Marshal. Although he obeyed the old man and came nearer to the fire, it was with curiosity in his expression.
“Me, my lord?” Bric asked in his heavy Irish brogue.
William nodded, eyeing the man with pale blond hair and eyes so blue that they appeared silver in certain light. “Aye,” he said, scratching his neck. “You, too. What did Daveigh tell you?”
He was speaking of Bric’s liege, and the big knight shrugged. “That you had a message to deliver, my lord,” he said. “But I thought you wished for me to take a message back to Daveigh.”
William shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “The message is for you, MacRohan. I need your sword.”
“You have it, my lord.”
That was all William wanted to hear. His gaze lingered on the knight for a moment before returning his attention to the other three men in the chamber.
Men with reputations few had.
Kress and Achilles were the two in particular he was thinking of, men who had a long and somewhat unsavory history at times. There was a third man not with them at this moment, a man by the name of Maxton of Loxbeare. Maxton had married and was off near Gloucester, maintaining a heavy hold on the southern end of the Welsh Marches from the property he’d acquired from his wife, which had somewhat removed him from the trio that was him and Kress de Rhydian and Achilles de Dere. Even so, that brotherhood was still firmly intact.
The Unholy Trinity.
That was what both Christian and Muslim commanders called the three from their time spent in The Levant. If there was a dirty job to be done, Maxton and Kress and Achilles would do it. They were used like attack dogs by the Christian commanders, warriors and spies and assassins in every sense of the word. They’d gone into the crusade in The Levant as Christian warriors and had emerged the Executioner Knights.
They’d emerged killers, but they also emerged with a reputation that nothing could deter them from what they’d been sworn to do– kill, protect, attack– anything that was withintheir scope of talents. Once they gave their words, nothing could move that determination, not blood or begging or money.
