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in,” he said, his voice low. “Make sure the doors are secured so they cannot get out. The fire will do the rest.”
    The knight with the scar nodded smartly and went on his way, muttering the orders to the other knights and a few soldiers standing nearby and, together, the group of them began herding the women back towards the burning priory. The women, realizing that they were being corralled to their doom, began to wail and plead for their lives. Before the big knight turned back for his charger, he saw a couple of his soldiers grab two or three of the women and pull them away from the pack. As he mounted his horse, he could hear the screams of those women being raped.
    It made no impression on him. Nothing in life ever did. He had a mission and he had since he’d been five years of age. Nothing was going to stop him in his quest to see his mission completed and now he had what he had come for. After years of planning, of suffering, and of hard work, his scheme was about to come to fruition as he’d hoped. He finally had a de Velt.
    Now, he would set the trap.
     
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CHAPTER TWO
     
    Lioncross Abbey Castle
    Hereford, Welsh Marches
    Three weeks later, the month of June
     
    The Earl of Hereford and Worcester was a man known throughout England. Much like William Marshal or Hubert de Burgh, Christopher de Lohr had the reputation of power, wisdom, and connections to the crown but, unlike the other two, when it came to the de Lohr dynasty, there was much more fear and admiration in the mix. The man, and his brother, David, had seen much service in the name of Richard, much of it in The Levant and in France, and that made them more experienced warriors than most. The de Lohr war machine was legendary.
    It was a legendary status that came with responsibility, however. The de Lohrs had held the Marches for years, and quite ably, so when there was trouble along any stretch of the Welsh Marches, all roads seemed to point to de Lohr as a source of aid. However, the most recent trouble experienced along the northern stretch of the Marches in Shropshire was something different from the usual raiding or isolated skirmishes. This had the earmark of conquest, much as a similar surge several years ago had. As Christopher had read the missives from the north, from the Earl of Shropshire no less, he couldn’t help the sense of foreboding that had swept him. He didn’t want to think about the potential for another devastating surge against the borders, but that’s exactly what this seemed to be. What’s more, Shropshire seemed to put a name to all of the chaos – de Llion. Christopher had recognized the name and immediately sent for someone he suspected might have more information on it.
    Christopher sat on Shropshire’s missive for eight days, the time it took for him to send a missive to Whitebrook, in Wales, and for the man he sent for to make his way to Lioncross. But once that man appeared, Christopher had convened all of his knights with the exception of his brother, who was in Kent, to discuss the missive from Shropshire.
    It was a bright afternoon in late May when de Lohr assembled his men in his richly appointed solar in the bowels of Lioncross. The old castle had stood on that location longer than any other structure on the border. It had once been a Roman outpost and a church before it had been incorporated into a castle. Therefore, the walls around them held more of a sense of experience and doom than most.
    All of them men could feel it, particularly the man that had ridden from his home in Wales just due west of Gloucester. Sir Rod de Titouan, a handsome man with black hair and lively blue eyes, wasn’t exactly sure why he had been summoned by the great de Lohr, but he knew it couldn’t be good. Something was brewing and Christopher evidently wanted him to be a part of it. Having arrived from Wales only an hour before, he was seated in the solar with a cup of good wine and a platter of food at his