Chapter Six
Ridlaw Manor
Twenty Miles East of Bristol
The man wasn’t bluffing.
He’d seen men like this before—men who turned gambling into a business, and when those who owed debts didn’t pay fast enough, they came for their pound of flesh. Now, they had come to him for more than a pound of flesh because, unfortunately, he owed them all that and more.
That was nothing new in his world.
Ciaran le Daire owed the entire world money, it seemed.
He couldn’t remember when he had actually not been in debt, but certainly, at some point in his life he hadn’t owed anyone anything.
Maybe in infancy. In any case, it seemed like every action in his adult life had been to either pay a debt or create a debt or try to make money somehow.
He got that particular trait from his father, who had inherited Ridlaw from his father, as the manor had been in the family for more than one hundred years.
Not strangely, it had been purchased from a man who had run up a debt with a French count, a man who wanted his money and wasn’t afraid to kill people to get it.
That was how Ridlaw Manor came into the possession of the le Daire family.
Therefore, the manor had seen its share of shady characters coming and going.
There was always something happening there, as the townspeople would say.
It used to be a nice place in relatively decent repair, but the years had not been kind to it, as the le Daire owners had not seen a need for upkeep.
It used to be a place of prosperity, because it had a good deal of land that was used to grow wheat.
But le Daire wasn’t a farmer and he didn’t employ farmers, so a few of the local farm workers had taken to leasing his land so they could at least make a living.
They split the crop with Ciaran and he did what he pleased with it, which was usually trade it for drink or sell it for money to gamble.
It was a difficult existence.
It was even more difficult now that Ciaran was staring down a man from Glasgow, a pirate with a nasty streak in him.
In addition to his pirate activities, he was also a man who sponsored a traveling game of chance that went all around the south of England, a game that Ciaran had spent a good deal of money on when it had come to Bath.
When the money was gone, he’d asked for credit. That had been his mistake.
Now, the creditor had come to collect.
“My father, unfortunately, does not have all of the money.” It was Benedict, Ciaran’s son, pleading on behalf of his father. “If you will only give us a little more time, I am sure we can pay you to your satisfaction.”
The man who had done the threatening shifted his focus to Benedict.
There was malevolence behind the dark eyes as he gazed at the man begging on behalf of his father.
He called himself King Dagda, though his real name was cause for much speculation among those who knew him.
Some said that he had come from Scottish nobility while others said he came from the gutter.
Wherever he came from was of little matter, however.
It was what he’d learned while he was there that caused concern.
Torture techniques, among other things, both physical and mental.
No one wanted to be on King Dagda’s bad side.
“You do understand that your father borrowed money from me,” he finally said to Benedict. “He owes me a great deal.”
“I know,” Benedict said, avoiding his father’s pleading gaze. “We are attempting to sell property as we speak. We only need a little more time.”
King Dagda seemed interested by the mention of valuables to sell. “What kind of property?”
There really wasn’t much, to be truthful, but Benedict didn’t want to let on. He wanted King Dagda to believe that they did indeed have things to sell, things that could pay the debt.
“Land, mostly,” he said. “If you feel that it would help pay your debt if we were to give them to you, then by all means, you may have it.”
As he’d hoped, King Dagda shook his head. “I have no use for grass,” he said distastefully. “What else are you selling?”
“Would you take my daughter?”
The question came from Ciaran. King Dagda looked at him with surprise as Benedict closed his eyes in horror.
“Papa, we agreed,” Benedict said before King Dagda could respond. “We do not sell Desdra. Not again.”
“Not again?” King Dagda said, interrupting. He looked between Benedict and Ciaran. “What’s this about selling a daughter?”
“My daughter,” Ciaran said, a little louder this time. “Desdra is a good worker. She is educated. She can help you with your accounts. She can run your household. She can do anything.”
King Dagda frowned. “I do not need a chatelaine,” he said. “I need my money.”
“And I shall get you your money,” Ciaran said. “If you’ll not take my daughter in payment, will you take her as collateral until the debt is paid? That has been done before. She is quite valuable.”
King Dagda was still frowning. He looked at Benedict. “What is he speaking of?” he said. “What does he mean?”
Benedit sighed heavily. “He means that he used my sister to settle a debt with Chester de Long,” he said. “The man owns Aphrodite’s Feast in Bristol. Have you heard of it?”
That brought a look of surprise from King Dagda. “Of course I have,” he said. “I have visited there, many times. Are you telling me that your sister has a position there?”
“Aye,” Benedict said. “She has for three years.”
That information fed the possibilities in King Dagda’s mind. “Is she a muse?” he said, referring to the general term for the women who had positions at Aphrodite’s Feast. “She must be beautiful and accomplished, indeed. Aye, I will take her in payment for the debt. I will take her immediately.”
“Wait,” Benedict said quickly, holding up his hand in a quelling gesture.
“Before we take such drastic steps, please give us time to sell property to pay you what we owe first. My sister is an accomplished woman, as you have said, and should not be used for barter like a mare. I will tell you quite honestly that my father was wrong to do so in the first place. To do it again would be a sin of the greatest magnitude.”
King Dagda stared at him a moment before breaking into laughter.
“What do I care about a sin?” he said. “It is not as if the church and I are on speaking terms. Nay, lad, I care about money. My money. And your father owes me money. I will happily take a woman who has worked at Aphrodite’s Feast in payment. She will make my men very happy.”
Benedict tried to keep the look of disgust off his face but couldn’t quite manage it. “You’ll not have my sister,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “I will make sure you have your money, but you must give me a fortnight. Return at that time and I will have it for you.”
The humor on King Dagda’s face faded. “You speak as if you are sure you can get it.”
“I am.”
King Dagda held his gaze for a moment, contemplating that reply, before finally conceding.
“Very well,” he said. “But not a fortnight. I’ll return in a week.
But if you do not have the money, then I will take everything you own, including your sister, and you will have no say in it.
Any resistance and I’ll kill you and your father. Do you comprehend me?”
“I comprehend.”
“Good.”
King Dagda began to move toward the door of the chamber, pulling his men with him.
They’d been spread out around the sparsely furnished room, one that had once been a solar of lavish means until Ciaran took over.
After everything came into his possession, he’d started selling possessions off, a little at a time, to fund his gambling habit.
Now, there was nothing left but the house itself and his children.
Desdra had already been used for a substantial debt, and Benedict, though a knight, refused to be used by his father as barter.
Pity, Ciaran had once thought.
Benedict could have been worth a lot to him.
But now, it was Benedict trying to protect the last vestiges of his inheritance as his father tried to ruin everything.
Only he stood between Ciaran and complete destruction.
His gaze tracked King Dagda as the man stood in the doorway, ushering his men through, until he was the only one left standing there. He pointed right at Benedict.
“A week,” he said, his tone deadly. “I will see you then.”
Benedict simply nodded, watching the man depart. He waited a nominal amount of time for the gang of men to leave the manse, waiting for the sounds of horses moving out in the ward until he turned to his father to speak.
“Again,” he growled. “You did it again.”
Ciaran had his head down. “And you had no right to take away my ability to bargain,” he said. “I am your father. I am the lord of the manor and you are not in command here.”
“I am the only one in command here,” Benedict nearly screamed at him. “You are a pathetic excuse for a father, one I am deeply ashamed of, so remember that. Remember that for the rest of your life your son does not respect you and your daughter hates you, you worthless cretin. God, how worthless!”
Ciaran wanted to shout at him in return, but that wouldn’t get them anywhere.
They’d already shouted at one another. For years, they’d shouted at one another.
They’d screamed and yelled and berated each other.
But it always came down to Ciaran giving in to his gambling urge and Benedict trying to get him out of it. The same old dynamics.
The same old heartache.
“So I am worthless,” Ciaran muttered. “If you do not pay that man, I will be dead.”
Benedict was so frustrated with his father that all he could do was wave at the man in a sharp gesture.
“If it were not for me, you would have been dead a long time ago,” he said.
“Mayhap we would have been better off. At least Desdra would have been better off. I would have found her a husband who would not sell her off to pay a gambling debt.”
Ciaran didn’t have a retort for that because it was true. “If I had not used her to pay the debt, I would be dead,” he said. “Chester de Long would have sent men after me.”
Benedict snorted with the sheer irony of his father’s defense.
“Chester de Long is not the killing kind,” he said.
“You’re lying about that, too. You lie and you cheat and you gamble and then you blame everyone for your woes.
Well, no more. This is going to end. I am going to go to Bristol and talk to Desdra about all of this.
Mayhap she has some ideas as to where to come up with the money. ”
Ciaran simply sat there, in a chair that was cracked, staring at the floor and knowing that the verbal browbeating he was receiving was nothing undeserved. There were times when he hated himself, too, but he couldn’t admit it.
“Mayhap she can get the money,” he muttered. “No matter what you think of me in sending Desdra to de Long to pay off my debts, he never used her as a muse. He was good to her.”
“I know,” Benedict said without patience.
“And that is the only thing that keeps me from killing you for what you did to her, the knowledge that she’s simply a scribe.
Unlike you, I have visited her several times in Bristol, and she seems to be relatively content with her lot in life. But it’s not right and you know it.”
Ciaran wouldn’t look at him. “The debt was paid some time ago,” he said. “She no longer needs to remain there.”
“And she should return here so you can sell her off to King Dagda to pay off yet another debt?” Benedict said, shaking his head. “I will not allow it.”
“She is my daughter.”
“She is my sister.”
Ciaran finally lifted his gaze, looking at his son. “So you would rather see King Dagda kill me?” he said. “Is that what you want?”
Benedict wasn’t going to let his father put any guilt on him, not when they both knew he was right.
“I will get the money somehow,” he said.
“But I will tell you this now, Ciaran—never again will I pay a debt for you. Never again will you use Desdra as barter. The next debt you incur will be one you must deal with yourself, because I will not do it, and if King Dagda comes to extract his pound of flesh from you because you refuse to pay, I will not stand in his way. And that is a promise.”
With that, he left, leaving his father sitting alone and dejected in the cold, stale chamber.
Ciaran knew that Benedict was going home, home to the wife he loved and the two small boys he had fathered.
Children that he’d never allowed Ciaran to be around.
He kept his little family away from Ridlaw Manor and away from the grandfather who had gambled away their legacy.
Benedict was going back to that perfect world, back to the fortified stone and timber dwelling that was the only part of his father’s property that Ciaran hadn’t yet stripped or ruined.
Benedict lived in the hall house in the larger village on the Ridlaw property, basically a home with a public space, or hall, on the ground level where the law could be dispensed and other town business could be conducted, but the second floor had living quarters for Benedict and his family.
While Ciaran sat in his manor home in squalor, doing little else but gamble and drink, Benedict was the law for the area.
He took care of the things his father wouldn’t.
He was a well-respected and decent fellow, which was why the ambush just outside of the village came as such a horrible shock to everyone.
Benedict had no enemies, but on that evening when he traveled away from his father’s home after the encounter with King Dagda, Benedict le Daire’s life was unceremoniously stolen from him by a few highwaymen on the hunt for someone to rob.
Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t King Dagda or his men.
It was simply a group of random outlaws.
Ciaran, however, didn’t hear about his son’s death until the following morning.
And then he drank himself into oblivion.