Chapter Nineteen #3
The fight continued.
Now that they were free of the confines of the shack, Thor was determined to end the fight once and for all.
Grabbing his opponent by the hair, he slammed the man’s face into the rocky ground, several times, enough to stun him.
Climbing off the man, he took several steps back and unsheathed his broadsword, taking an offensive stance as the man shook off the stars dancing before his eyes and rolled over onto his bum.
That was when Thor could get a good look at him.
His eyes widened.
“De Lucera?” he hissed in disbelief. “Cristano de Lucera? What in the hell are you doing?”
Cristano spat the dirt out of his mouth, touching a loose tooth before answering. “You are supposed to be dead, de Reyne.”
Thor had to admit that he was a little stunned, but as he stared at de Lucera, things started to make sense just a little.
“You did this?” he said, gesturing to the village. “You instigated this… this raid?”
De Lucera sighed heavily and stood up. “Will you at least let me claim my broadsword and make this a fair fight?”
Thor held up a hand. “Wait,” he said, more angrily. “Answer my question. You instigated this raid?”
De Lucera’s gaze lingered on him for a moment. “I was not alone.”
That comment brought the light of realization in Thor’s mind. “De Wylde,” he rumbled. “De Wylde and his son.”
De Lucera shrugged. “You haven’t said whether I can gather my sword.”
“Why did you kill the younger de Wylde?”
De Lucera shook his head. “I did not,” he said. “We do not know what happened to him. We found him that way, as if he’d been crushed or trampled.”
“Where is his father?”
“I do not know, but the son’s death drove him mad. He is probably off killing himself.”
Thor’s frustration was only growing with those answers.
The truth of the situation was coming to him in pieces.
“Start from the beginning and I may show mercy,” he said.
“Tell me what is happening here. Are you saying this raid was instigated by you and de Wylde to try to draw me out of the castle so you could shoot me down with a crossbow?”
“Let me collect my sword and I will tell you everything.”
“Tell me everything and I may let you collect your sword.”
De Lucera was at an extreme disadvantage and knew it.
It wasn’t as if he had much to bargain with.
He thought that if he was honest with de Reyne, the man might let his guard down a little, which would help even the odds.
Unless Adan and Benedicto were going to come to his aid against a superior opponent, he was on his own.
“After you exiled us from Stafford, we had nowhere to go,” he said.
“I have served Stafford for many years. I know the land; I know the people. I did not want to go far and start anew, so I went to Dordon. He is Lady de Reyne’s uncle, after all.
I asked him if he would consider accepting my fealty and that of my cousins. ”
Thor could only shake his head in disgust. “He is also my wife’s enemy, and surely you must have known that,” he said with skepticism.
“Therefore, you went to him in the hopes that he would accept your fealty so you could remain close to Stafford and possibly cause problems for my wife and me. I would be more apt to believe that than any other explanation, so do not lie to me, de Lucera. I know you better than you know yourself.”
De Lucera wasn’t going to deny it. There was no point.
“As it turns out, there is someone who hates you more than I do,” he said, a glimmer of irony in his eyes.
“When you married Lady Stafford, that sealed Dordon’s hatred for you.
While I was content to bide my time against you, Dordon was not.
He wants you dead, de Reyne. With you gone, he is once again in control of his niece’s destiny. ”
“He was never in control of her, not ever.”
“Mayhap not, but with you gone, it makes the woman more vulnerable to his wishes.”
Thor wasn’t surprised to hear it. “So he moves beyond trying to marry his son to his niece,” he muttered as the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. “Now, he simply wants to kill me so Caledonia will be alone again.”
“That is correct.”
“But even if I am dead, Caledonia is alive and he cannot have Tamworth if she is living,” he said. “God, don’t tell me… He wasn’t going to try to marry her himself, was he?”
De Lucera shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I am going to marry her, assume Stafford, and give him Tamworth.”
He said it so factually, as if it was nothing outrageous, but Thor found himself shaking his head in disbelief.
“Clearly, you two had a scheme,” he said. “And that crossbow was meant to kill me.”
“It was.”
Thor had to wrap his mind around the whole plot. The poor village of Millford was caught in the middle of a power struggle and an attempted assassination while Cristano de Lucera sat calmly a few feet away. A man who had been promised Caledonia and Stafford Castle for his role in Thor’s death.
It was astonishing.
“Something is not clear,” Thor said after a moment. “Did de Wylde promise you this before his son’s death? Because he wants Callie to marry his son, you know.”
“He promised it to me after Domnall’s death, if I would help him kill you,” de Lucera said.
“De Reyne, he was originally going to abduct you and ransom you back to your wife. But that changed at Domnall’s death.
After that, he simply wanted you dead. For the price of your life, he would demand the wealth of Tamworth. ”
“Then it is about the money?”
“It seems to be. Money and power are all that matter, are they not?”
Thor grunted. “There are a few more things worth living for.”
“Like what?”
“A good woman.”
It took de Lucera a moment to understand what he was saying. “Ah,” he said. “You mean Lady Stafford.”
Thor eyed the man in the darkness. “You saw what her marriage to de Tosni was like,” he said. “You saw how he treated her. How he entrusted their children to that charlatan, Madam Madonna. Where is the woman, anyway? She left Stafford with you.”
“She went with us to Dordon,” de Lucera confirmed.
“She did not stay, however. She wanted to return to Whitby Abbey, where she evidently came from, in the hopes that she could become a nurse for another noble family. She did not seem overly distraught about not returning to Stafford. She said that she would not serve under a whore.”
He meant Caledonia, and it was a struggle for Thor to keep his temper at bay.
“Lady Stafford is no whore, I assure you,” he muttered.
“Madam Madonna did not wish to return because she knew her reign of terror was over. She knew that Callie would not stand for her any longer. Hell, de Lucera, you served at Stafford. You saw how that woman treated the children.”
De Lucera was unmoved. “It was not my concern.”
That rubbed Thor the wrong way. Three starving little girls were not his concern? All of those adults at Stafford and no one could take responsibility for the children.
That disgusted him.
“So I see,” he said, feeling that the conversation was at an end. “Let us sum up this situation, de Lucera—Madam Madonna has gone to prey on another family, the younger de Wylde is dead, and you are now my prisoner. But that leaves Lord Dordon.”
“What about him?”
“Where is he?”
De Lucera shrugged. “As I said, his son’s death drove him into madness,” he said. “I do not know where he is.”
That was probably the truth, but Thor had to make sure. “Would he have gone back to Dordon?” he asked.
“He was more concerned with seeing you dead. I do not think he would go home.”
Thor was starting to get that bad feeling again.
Off in the distance, he could see the Stafford army moving about and saw, distinctly, when Truett came into view dragging a body.
Thor suspected it was one of the de Lucera cousins who, more than likely, were the ones shooting the bolts.
If Cristano was, this surely his cousins were as well.
Therefore, they had managed to subdue those who had caused the chaos at Millford, evidently for the sole purpose of killing the new earl of Tamworth and Stafford.
But they were missing one key player.
Rotri de Wylde.
That bad feeling grew worse.
“De Lucera,” Thor said slowly, trying to keep his apprehension down, “I am going to ask you one question. Your answer will determine whether or not I kill you where you stand, so think hard and answer well.”
Cristano sighed sharply and tensed, preparing for what was to come. “What is it?”
“Did you and de Wylde concoct this raid to draw me out of Stafford so de Wylde could get to my wife while I was busy fighting off the raiding army?” Thor asked through clenched teeth. “Does the fact that de Wylde isn’t here mean he has gone to Stafford and to Caledonia?”
De Lucera shook his head. “That was not the original plan,” he said.
“But, as I said, the death of de Wylde’s son did something to him.
Even as Domnall lay at his feet, Dordon was demanding your death.
I suppose it is possible that he has gone on to Stafford, knowing I would kill you and knowing we had made a bargain about your widow. ”
“Would it be fair to say that he has gone on to collect her?”
“Given how badly he wants you dead, I would say that is fair.”
That was all Thor needed to hear. He moved to shout to his knights, but de Lucera took advantage of the distraction and grabbed for his broadsword. The entire situation deteriorated into chaos again, but when Thor finally got the upper hand, he didn’t hesitate in doing what needed to be done.
De Lucera’s head went rolling one way while his body fell the other.
Before Thor drew another breath, he was running for his horse.