Devil's Dominion (30 page)

Just like everyone, Bretton wanted to be satisfied in life. He was not satisfied now and he believed that killing Jax would lead him to gratification. Allaston thought a moment on how she could help him find contentment and perhaps save her father at the same time. After the man had refused to put her on a pole, even after she’d provoked him, she had a feeling he might be more apt to listen to her persuasion.

“De Llion,” she said softly, moving in his direction. “
Bretton
. May I call you Bretton?”

He looked at her, seeing that she was coming towards him. “You will whether or not I want you to,” he said, rolling his eyes with exasperation. “You never do anything I want you to do.”

She smiled agreeably. “Bretton,” she began quietly. “When my father set out to conquer Four Crosses those years ago, it was not with the express intent to hurt you or ruin your life. You were simply collateral damage. Surely you understand that.”

“I do.”

She thought carefully on what she would say next. “I do not believe that we are all born predisposed to what we will become,” she said. “In other words, you were not born to be a killer. I am sure you were born a very sweet little boy who loved his parents very much. You probably had pets and toys like all children do. What you have become since that time... you chose to become a killer and to seek vengeance against my father, who inadvertently ruined your life. Killing him will not bring your parents back and it will not suddenly make you a happy and content man. On the contrary, I believe it will leave you more empty and angry than before. You will not find the true happiness you seek in another man’s murder. Therefore, I want to make you a proposal.”

He was trying not to look interested. In fact, he waved her off. “There is nothing that you can propose to me that will satisfy me.”

“Will you at least hear me?”

He rolled his eyes again. “I am sure I have little choice but I will tell you again that it will do no good.”

Allaston was going to give it her best try. She had always been persuasive. She hoped her luck would continue to hold.

“I decided when I was twelve years old that I wanted to become a nun,” she said. “I have always wanted to serve Our Holy Father as a Bride of Christ, but I am not sure anymore if that is something that will make me happy. Let me explain… my happiness lies within my family. It took me a long time to realize that and even as I served at Alberbury, it was not happy. I missed my family, my parents and siblings, because I believe the love of a family is something God has given to us to enjoy and to appreciate. Even before you came and abducted me, I was coming to think that I had been misplaced at Alberbury. I was not particularly happy for the reasons I just outlined. I wanted to go home and spend time with my family, and mayhap someday have a family of my own and a home of my own. Isn’t that something you would like to have as well? A wife who is loyal and children who love you?”

Bretton was looking at her again, the bright blue eyes guarded. “I would like heirs but only to carry on my name,” he said. “A wife and children will simply be something else that belongs to me - possessions.”

It was a cold way to view it and she wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. There was something about the man that suggested he wasn’t completely emotionless as he wanted others to believe. He was simply afraid of being hurt again, of losing someone he loved. In many ways, Bretton was still that little boy who had been so devastated by the loss of his parents and sister. She went forward with her proposal.

“I do not want to see my father killed, especially when it will not bring you the relief or happiness you seek,” she said. “I understand the love of a family, Bretton. I understand how it can fill you like nothing else and my father, after those years of warfare, understands it, too. The love of my mother was strong enough to make him stop his dreams of conquest. Love is the greatest thing of all. Therefore, because I love my father, I am willing to make this sacrifice – I know I told you that I would kill myself I you ever touched me, and I swore I would not agree to marry you, but the situation has changed. I will offer myself to you as your bride if you will cease your vengeance against my father. When you marry me, I come with a dowry – my father has several castles and since I am his eldest daughter, I have been given Belford Castle on the Scots border. My dowry was promised to Alberbury when I took my final vows, but since I have not taken them, the property still belongs to me. I have an annual income of three hundred gold crowns a year as well. All of this will be yours if you marry me and cease your vengeance against my father. Will you at least consider it?”

Bretton gazed steadily at her. He couldn’t quite bring himself to deny her but he didn’t understand why. Perhaps there was a part of him that wanted to have her by his side, as his wife, because clearly, she had grown on him since the day he had abducted her. In fact, he couldn’t imagine not having her around. But he wasn’t yet ready to give up on his vengeance against de Velt, not when it had been part of him for so long. Torn, he averted his eyes, sighing heavily as he did so. Allaston, not receiving any manner of answer, moved towards him so that she was standing by his left leg. She looked up at him earnestly.

“Remember when you were a child and your father meant so much to you?” she asked, trying to tear down his walls of resistance. “Think of the family we might have – a son or two, or even three. Mayhap even a few daughters. Think of what they would mean to you and how you, as their father, would be proud of them. That kind of pride is so much better than the empty victory my father’s death will bring you. Can you understand that?”

He looked at her, sharply. “I understand a boy’s adoration of his father,” he said. “Your father deprived me of that.”

“But you can find it again with your own son,” she insisted, daring to put a hand on his leg. “Will you at least consider it?”

He could feel her hand on his leg, searing him through the leather of his boot. He was so bloody confused and conflicted that he could hardly see straight. He simply couldn’t give her the answer she wanted and it tore at him because so much of what she said made sense. So much of what she said was attractive to him. But he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. Reaching down, he took a firm grip on her wrist and pulled her up, onto the saddle behind him.

“Now, sit still and be quiet,” he told her as she seated herself comfortably behind him. “I do not want to hear another word from you.”

Allaston complied, mostly because she didn’t want another spanking should she disobey. Her bum was already quite sore. But she had planted the seed within him and she hoped it would take root. She hoped that her offer was something he would consider for it was all she had to give. Her life, her servitude, in exchange for her father’s life. She’d tried before, begging the man not to kill her father, but this was different. She was offering him the rest of her life. But she kept quiet as he directed the horse back down the road, south, on a direct course for Newtown twenty miles away.

There would be time enough to discuss such things later.

℘

The Falcon and Flower Inn was an older establishment in Newtown, having been only The Falcon Inn about a hundred years ago, adding the “Flower” by the current owner’s wife. Eleven years ago when she had married her husband, she had set about making the place a little more “lady friendly”. She cleaned up the rooms, kept whores away from the place, and she even had a small room where one could take a bath and freshen up. The inn was more expensive than most, but it catered to a finer clientele.

Rod sat at a table in the inn’s main room. He’d arrived yesterday and slept on a mattress that had been stuffed with feathers, dried lavender, and dried rose petals, and he’d never slept so well in his life. He’d even taken a bath in the inn’s special bath tub, a large copper trough that was about the size of a coffin. A big male servant had helped him bathe and had even shaved him, so he was clean and shaved and prepared to meet whatever came. And something was indeed coming. He could feel it.

The missive Rod had sent to Bretton de Llion had asked the man to meet him on the first day of the new month, which was tomorrow. Rod had come alone, that was true, but he was meeting the man in a public place so he doubted there would be any trouble. There were too many witnesses. He had also told him that he would be wearing a tunic bearing the de Llion colors of yellow and black, which he was, so he could be easily identified.

So here he sat, cleaned and shaved and bearing colors, waiting for a killer to enter the room. He was fairly certain that de Llion was coming, whether or not he was truly his cousin. If it was indeed his cousin, then perhaps he would come, eager to be reunited with his kin. Or if he wasn’t his cousin but simply a man using the de Llion name, then... perhaps Rod would discover why. Either way, he was fairly certain the man was coming.

The morning came and went, as did the nooning hour. The innkeeper’s wife brought him a delicious meal of a thick chicken stew with big dumplings in it, stewed plums with cinnamon, a big loaf of hot cream-colored bread, and plenty of tart red wine. Rod stuffed himself silly because they didn’t eat this well at Bronllys. His grandfather only liked lamb and beef, and too much bread gave him gas, so he was enjoying the change in diet and ate to his heart’s content.

But mealtime soon passed and the afternoon set in. Rod continued to sit at the table he had been sitting at since early that morning, his back to the wall, watching as people came and went from the inn. There were some interesting characters, too. A very old man and a very young girl who was his daughter, at least, that’s what he’d told the innkeeper’s wife. But Rod doubted it from the look of fear on the girl’s face. There had also been a pair of swarthy men with strange accents, a very wealthy older woman and her two homely daughters, and finally three knights bearing the colors of Lancaster. The knights had fortunately ignored him, eaten their meal, and then left.

At some point he could hear thunder and the rain began to fall, gently at first but then with increasing power. Soon, there was a full-blown storm overhead that was lashing the walls of the tavern. More people were streaming in to get out the rain and as the sun began to set, the innkeeper’s wife stoked the hearth into a roaring blaze to dry off those who had been caught in the rain. People began to crowd around the spitting hearth, drying wet heads and hands, as Rod sat back and sipped at his watered wine.

Time passed and he found himself watching a man who had come in off the street with his young son. He wasn’t sure if the man was a merchant, or a lord, just passing through town, but he was rather well dressed and the boy was, too. They were both soaked through and the man was undressing the lad in front of the fire so the child would warm up. As Rod watched, it made him think of his own father, Renard.

Crusty, sometimes tactless, but an excellent knight and a man of honor, Renard de Titouan was a wonderful father. He was thankfully still alive, living at Whitebrook, the family home in the Wye Valley, along with the rest of Rod’s family – his mother, Orlaith, his mother’s older brother, Rhett, who had also once been a fine knight but had suffered a painful affliction of the joints that left him no longer able to bear a sword, Rod’s younger brother Dylan, and finally his nephew, Maddoc, son of his eldest brother, Rhys. Aye, Rod knew he was very lucky to still have both parents alive and a big family to love. It was something he cherished. He wondered if he was about to meet yet another member of his family to add to the happy group.

As he sat and watched the man deal with his young son, the front door to the tavern opened and two people blew in with the wind and the rain. It was fairly dark over by the entry but Rod happened to glance over to see a very large man in armor and a small woman in a wet cloak. The moment the man looked around the room in search of someone in charge, Rod’s breath caught in his throat. The man had black hair, a growth of beard on his square-jawed face, and brilliant blue eyes that were the same color as Rod’s. In fact, the entire de Llion family had them - him, his mother, Uncle Rhett, his brother Rhys, Rhys’ son Maddoc, and even Berwyn. It was a family trait. Rod stood up from the table, his eyes riveted to the man who was now dragging his companion away from the door and towards the fire. He’d know that de Llion face anywhere.

“Bretton?” he asked, rather loudly.

Bretton came to a halt, his hand still clutching Allaston’s arm, as he came face to face with a man that looked very familiar to him. He noted the yellow and black tunic and knew instantly who it was. Rather than be standoffish or guarded, as he had planned, all he felt was relief. And perhaps some shock.

“Rod?” he responded quietly. “Is it you?”

Rod nodded, staring at him, before reaching out to grab him. Before he could stop himself, he was throwing his arms around Bretton and squeezing him within an inch of his life. There were tears in his eyes, too, as he pulled away to look at the astonished man.

“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed. “It
is
you. I can hardly believe my eyes.
It is you
!”

Bretton wasn’t quite sure how to react. His cousin was hugging him and kissing his cheeks, so very excited to see him. He was also tearing up, wiping at his eyes because he was so emotional. Before Bretton could say a word, Rod was dragging him over to his table.

“Please, sit,” he insisted. “And your lady? Greetings, Lady de Llion. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to see you and my cousin. This is like... like a dream. Never did I imagine I would ever see my cousin again. I cannot adequately express my joy.”