Kathryn Le Veque

LORD
OF LIGHT

A
Medieval Romance Novel

By
Kathryn Le Veque

Author’s Note:

This
novel utilizes some supernatural elements as part of the storyline.
 
Is it paranormal? Or is it divine
intervention? That is left to the reader’s interpretation.

Copyright 2013 by Kathryn Le Veque
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed by Dragonblade Publishing in the United States of America

Text
copyright 2013 by Kathryn Le Veque
Cover copyright 2013 by Kathryn Le Veque

Prologue

1189 A.D.

The Holy Land

God’s Bones, but the
thunderstorms in this, the most holy of lands, could be exceedingly
violent.
 

They seemed to appear out of
nowhere and suddenly you were fleeing for your life, searching out any bit of
shelter that might protect you from the stinging rain.
 
Lightning would streak across the sky and
God’s shout could be heard in the thunderous roar. And then the rain would
pound mercilessly, as if the Holy Father was whipping his insolent children for
the battles they were creating in his beloved land.

Two knights struggled through the
downpour. They were separated from their comrades, wandering the rocky hills
surrounding Jerusalem searching in vain for their army.
 
It was deadly to be lost out here.

“Let’s hide in the Holy
Sepulcher,” cried one knight, “for it should be dry in there.”

Having few options and ignoring
the possible sacrilege of invading holy ground, they reined their chargers,
great muscular beasts, through the olive trees and up the rocky slope until
they came to what they had been told had been the burial cavern of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
 
The holy men of Jerusalem
had pointed it out to the Crusaders of the Third Quest and everyone declared
what a magnificent thing it was when in fact it was only a small cave, rough
and hardly worthy of the Son of God. But it was enough at the moment to shelter
them from the rain and they hoped God wouldn’t mind their intrusion.

The chargers had to remain
outside, sheltered beneath the barren olive grove, but inside the cool musty
cavern, two knights of Richard’s great crusade milled about and tried to not
leap like frightened animals every time the wind howled and the lightning flashed.
 
One of the knights noticed the slab on the
floor and pointed to it.

“Look, that’s where Christ lay in
his shroud and where the Angel resurrected him. Can’t you see the scorch marks?”

The other knight looked at the
crude slab of limestone and disputed that there were indeed marks of the
resurrection. It was an eerie feeling as he stared at the stone, not a reverent
one, and the larger knight of the two wished the rain would soon stop so they
could leave this place. He removed his helm, wiping the water from his sea
green eyes and slicking his cropped golden hair away from his face as he gazed
out at the stormy sky.

He, unlike the other, wasn’t
impressed by holy relics as he once had been. In fact, he was becoming
disillusioned with this entire quest. They were healers, the Order of
Hospitallers of St. John the Baptist, but so far they had done little healing
and much
killing.
When they were supposed to be elite
healers of a Holy Order, they were grouped with the common fighting men and
expected to slaughter.

“Roane, come and look at the
slab,” called his companion.

The big blond knight turned away
from the stormy visions outside and focused on the chalky, pitted limestone.

“What’s to see?” he asked
cynically and his companion laughed, running his hands over the stone.

“Can’t you feel the goodness of
this?” his companion asked, but Roane refused to give into the man’s reverence.
He was simply caressing an old stone as far as Roane was concerned. He didn’t
see God or Glory or the images of angels on it as the other apparently did.

“How can you see it at all, John
Adam?” Roane asked. “With your one bad eye, vision in this dark light is nearly
impossible.”

 
But the knight laughed at him. “I don’t need
to see it, for I can feel it far better,” he said.

Roane smirked at him.
“As you wish, John Adam.
So tell me what it is you feel.”

The knight with one glazed-over
eye continued to smile. “I feel God,” he said softly. Then he backed away from
the slab. “Come touch it, Roane,” he said again, “and mayhap you will feel
better about our mission here.”

Roane gazed at his companion, who
seemed to be so perceptive even with his one bad eye. Sometimes he could see
things that others could not, like strengths and weaknesses and faults of
character. John Adam knew how Roane was feeling about their quest, or lack thereof.
King Richard hadn’t even reached the Holy Land yet and the English were taking
their orders from Philip Augustus or Barbarossa because the English commanders were
not strong or intelligent enough to lead their men. Roane was certainly
intelligent enough, but he was a mere knight against those who easily outranked
him.

“Come touch the slab,” John Adam
said yet again, “mayhap it will renew your glory in our task.”

Roane simply stared at him and
shook his head. “Nay, I do not wish to renew my glory,” he said.

But John Adam was insistent. “Come
touch the slab,” he demanded.

Roane resisted again and again
until finally he could stand no more and simply to quiet his friend he put both
of his hands on the slab in a defiant gesture.

“There,” he said snappishly, “are
you satisfied now? I feel nothing holy or extraordinary about it!”

John Adam had not the time to
reply when suddenly a shriek of lightning lit up the sky so brightly that those
who saw the blast were instantly blinded. The massive bolt struck an old olive
tree atop the mount of the Holy Sepulcher and the tree shattered, scattering
pieces of wood across the rocky terrain. But the lightning did not stop there;
it traveled down through the rock, piercing the walls of the cave and traveling
with blazing speed through the nickel ore that was heavy in the rock.

When it
reached the dirt floor of the cave there was nowhere for the lightning to go
except to the slab that lay upon the ground, the holy slab that Roane’s hands
were still upon.
 
The slab lit full of fire and Roane felt the
lightning cut through his fingers, his great muscular arms, and finally his
body as it tossed him across the cavern and slammed him into the wall on the
other side.

For a moment, the world was dim
and spinning and Roane could smell burnt flesh. He could hear John Adam beside
him, asking if he was well. Of course he wasn’t well. He had just been cooked
by a bolt of lightning and he wasn’t feeling well in the least. Blindly, he
reached up and came into contact with a bushy brown head. He could hear John
Adam babble, then moan about the heat from Roane’s hands, until finally he
gasped and fell silent.
 
When the worlds
stopped moving and his senses returned, Roane opened his eyes to find John Adam
weeping pitifully at his feet.

“What’s wrong, John Adam, are you
hurt?” Roane asked, but John Adam continued to weep.

Roane was disoriented and
snappish. “John Adam, what’s wrong,
are
you hurt?” he
demanded again, but John Adam suddenly grabbed his hands and kissed his fingers
until Roane had to shove him away. “What’s the matter with you?” he wanted to
know. “Why do you kiss my hands and weep like a woman? Have you gone mad?”

John Adam’s head came up and the
one milky eye wasn’t milky any more. It was brown like the other one.

“You touched me and now I can
see, Roane,” he cried softly. “Through the slab you touched God has given you a
great gift, can you not see that?”

Roane was appalled at such
blasphemy. “You are a fool, John
Adam,
I’ve done
nothing of the kind.”

 
But John Adam grabbed him and forced him to
look in his now perfect eyes. “Look at me, Roane, this only happened after the
lightning struck you and you touched me. You are the lord of light! You give
miracles now!”

But Roane refused to believe
him.
 
John Adam continued to weep and
worship him as if he was God, and Roane ran off into the wild storm, still
smelling his burnt flesh and wondering what curse had been brought upon him in
the dank confines of Christ’s supposed grave.

He had yet to imagine.

CHAPTER ONE

1192 A.D.

Shropshire, England

The banging was as incessant as
the rain. At first, he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly, but soon there was
no doubt that someone was pounding on the old door of the abandoned abbey he
called home.
 
The storm outside had been
so deafening that he was surprised he could hear anything at all. But someone
was seeking entrance, obviously shelter from the weather.
 

His first reaction was to ignore
the rapping. But the lightning blared and the thunder rolled, and he thought
that mayhap he should consider being charitable since the weather outside was
so terrible. After all, it was extremely rare that he had visitors He ran off
most of them, but some he allowed to stay on the premises as long as they
didn’t stay more than a day. He couldn’t stand being around people any longer
than that. Two and a half years of virtual solitude gave him the amiability of a
nasty old bear.

The knocking continued.
 
Hunched over an old table that was barely
standing, quill in hand and parchment before him, he glanced up from his
writing as if he could see through the massive double doors at the end of the
long, shabby room.
 
A soft fire crackled
near him in a firepit that was more a hazard than a comfort.
 
In fact, the entire abbey was crumbling
around him and water leaked down the old stone walls, but he continued to stay
because it was remote and he didn’t have to worry about being found. But there
were, on occasion, travelers seeking shelter.

Which was
the immediate case.
Annoyed, he tossed his quill aside and marched on his muscular legs across the
dirt floor.
 
The pounding wouldn’t stop
until he told whomever it was to go away.
 
It was dark near the old dusty door and he almost stepped on his dog;
the large black animal scattered and he muttered a curse at the near miss.
Reaching the door, he was in no mood for foolery as he yanked it open.

Rain and water poured in, dousing
his worn black boots and thick woolen hose. A small figure stood before him,
swathed from head to toe in a drenched cloak. The swiftness by which the door
had opened startled the figure, and as it took a stumbling step back, the face
beneath the hood came into focus.

A most beautiful woman was gazing
back at him. “Forgive my intrusion, my lord,” she said through chattering
teeth. “I am looking for Sir Roane de Garr. I was told I could find him here.”

Now it was his turn to be
startled.
 
But his shock gave way to
apprehension and anger, and he reached out and grabbed the woman roughly by the
arms. “Who are you?” he growled.

Her brilliant green eyes filled
with fear. “I am the Lady Alisanne de Soulant,” she gasped. “I was told….”

“Told
what
?” he roared.

He was hurting her. Alisanne did
not struggle for she knew that he would only hold her tighter. He was a large
man, as large as she had ever seen, with piercing sea green eyes and a granite
jaw that implied utter strength.
 
The
hands that gripped her arms were the size of trenchers, fingers as large as
small
branches,
and she could feel them biting into
her flesh. But for all of the power he exuded, she wasn’t truly afraid; in
fact, she sensed more fear from him than she herself felt.

“I was told that Sir Roane could
help me,” she said with forced calm. “If I’ve not come to the right place, then
I will beg your forgiveness and leave.”

He stared at her a moment, his
harsh gaze studying her. Then he glanced around. “Who has accompanied you?”

“No one, my lord,” she said. “I
am alone.”

Disbelief mingled with his rage.
“Don’t lie to me.”

“I speak the truth, I swear it,”
she insisted. “My… my father is too ill to come and I could not find a suitable
escort, so I came alone. I must speak with Sir Roane. Are you he?”

He stared at her. Through his
fury and anxiety, he reaffirmed his opinion that she was a strikingly beautiful
woman and he could hardly imagine that she had traveled alone to his desolate
mountaintop abbey. More than likely, she indeed had escorts and he suspected
she was some sort of decoy. A cunning wench meant to destroy him, but he was
not about to make an easy target. They had finally found him, he realized, and
he shoved her away as he bolted back inside.

“Be gone!” he bellowed. “My sword
knows no boundaries, man or woman.”

Alisanne struggled to recover her
balance; the road was wet and extremely steep. A wrong step would see her
plunged several hundred feet down the precipitous slope.
 
Water dripped down her face as she stared at
the closed abbey door and it was difficult not to feel a tremendous sense of
despair.
 
But she could not give up; she’d
come much too far over dangerous ground and it would take more than the demands
of a surly knight to turn her away.

“Please!” she rushed to the door
and began pounding on it again. “Please, I must speak with Sir Roane!”

There was no answer and she
continued to pound.
 
She pounded all
night.

***

Dawn came after a very long night
of turmoil.
 
He hadn’t slept a wink,
positive that an intrusion of armed men was imminent. And the woman had kept
him on edge a good deal of that time with her constant pounding.
 
But just before first light, the pounding had
stopped and an eerie quiet settled. Roane didn’t know which disturbed him
worse; the constant rapping or the tense still.
 
He rose from his pallet in the corner of the great room, sword still in
hand as he stealthily made his way to the barred entrance.

He couldn’t see or hear anything,
but a pungent smell certainly had his attention.
 
The abbey was old and there were many gaps in
the walls, and he prowled around, peering from between the slats to see if
there was someone lingering outside to ambush him.
 
Cold air poured from the open rifts, kissing
his stubbled face. Carefully, he unbolted the great door and saw that the day
was dawning bright and beautiful after the horrific night.
 
His breath hung in the air as he took a step
or two into the narrow courtyard, cluttered with debris and puddles of dirty
water.

His weapon was in his hand but he
made no move to raise it and would not unless set upon; he was confident his
reflexes were fast enough.
 
He noticed
almost immediately that there was a fire in the center of the ward and
something lay roasting upon it; it was a crude spit and the animal impaled upon
it, he suspected, was a rabbit or pigeon. They were always plentiful after a
good rain. His worn boots tread carefully across the mud, his ears and eyes
alert, but all appeared to be deserted. Yet he knew instinctively he was not
alone, and he made his way back to the great doors of the old abbey. Closing
the door behind him carefully, he sighed and sheathed his sword; something was
going on and he wasn’t yet sure what it was.

“My lord,”
came
a honeyed voice. “I
must
speak with
you.”

Roane stiffened, wishing he
hadn’t put his weapon back in its scabbard. The dog hadn’t made a sound at the
intruder, which was unusual since it normally howled at the rats in the corner
and the owls in the rafters.
 
That
damnable dog croaked at
everything.

“Your presence is considered a threat,
and I will destroy any threat to my wellbeing,” he growled as he turned to face
her. Her luminescent green eyes were hauntingly visible in the shadows.
 
“Be gone or I shall not hesitate.”

Alisanne didn’t move. “You don’t
really consider me a threat.”

“You presume to know this?”

She nodded bravely. “If you did
so, you would have killed me last night. Instead, you let me pound on the door
until the sun rose.”

“That was your choice. I told you
to leave, and I meant it.”

Alisanne took a deep breath,
indicative of her frustration and desperation. “My lord, I am only seeking Sir Roane
de Garr. If you are not he,
then
please tell me and I
shall indeed be on my way.” She took a step forward so he could see her better
and realize she was unarmed and clearly no threat. “But if you are he, then I
must tell you that I am in desperate need of your aid. I am told you are the only
one who can help me.”

Roane didn’t trust her in the
least, but he wasn’t on edge as much as he had been.
 
In truth, she had a very calm, soothing
voice, something he knew he could grow pleasingly accustomed to. And she didn’t
radiate even a hint of devilry or mischief, but sincerity and honesty.
 
But her ploy to draw him outside so she could
enter had been clever; foolish for a seasoned knight to fall for it, but clever
for her nonetheless. He was surprised a woman possessed such slyness.

His jaw ticked as he studied her
more closely. “The fire outside,” he jerked his head in the direction of the
door so she would understand his meaning.
“You?”

Alisanne nodded as if
embarrassed. “Aye,” she said. “Well, you would not let me in. So the logical
thing was to draw you out.”

Roane grunted, chagrined that a
woman had so easily duped him.
 
But if
she had accomplices, as he suspected, then she had had help.
 
“What did you do with Samson?”

“Who, my
lord?”

“My dog.”

Alisanne pointed to a corner of
the great dusty room where the black hound chewed happily on a hunk of the meat
that had been roasting outside. She lifted her shoulders. “He was… hungry.”

“The meat isn’t poisoned, is it?”

She looked shocked.
“No, my lord.”

Roane lifted an eyebrow at the
dog, happily wolfing down his meal. The lady had been quite thorough in her
plan. Turning away from her, he moved to an ancient chair that sat near a fire
pit Roane had dug in the old floor. The abbey had no hearth, so he had to make
due with lighting a fire in a hazardous hole and hoping the smoke would stay up
near the ceiling and find its way out.
 
Sometimes, if the wind blew, he found himself smoked out. But today was
a
clear,
still day and he stirred the embers, all the
while keeping very alert of Alisanne’s presence. She remained in the shadows,
carefully observing every move he made.

“Where is the rest of your
party?” he asked her.

“I told you I came alone, my
lord.”

“That is a lie. No woman travels
alone.”

“She does if she has no choice.”

He shook his head in disbelief,
but also a measure of confusion. If she were indeed a decoy for a party of
assassins, they should have struck by now. He knew the minds of imbeciles well
enough to know that, and the mystery of her presence grew.

“Are you Sir Roane?” she asked
again.

Not only was she cunning, she was
persistent as hell. His face took on a strange expression, one he made sure she
did not see. He stoked the fire, stirring embers up into the air. “What is the
matter with your father?”

Alisanne blinked at the shift in
subject. “He… he has a weak heart.”

“And cannot travel?”

“No.”

“Yet he would let you come alone
to seek help for him.”

“The help is not for him, my
lord.”

“Then who is it for?”

He was asking questions, yet
supplying her with no answers at all. She countered him. “I will only tell Sir Roane.
If you are not him, then I shall be on my way.”

Roane hid a smile. She was indeed
a clever little thing. Taking a long, hard glance at her, his opinion was
reaffirmed that she was also a lovely little thing.
Prettier
now that she was drying out.
The cloak of her hood draped her shoulders,
revealing silky brown hair to frame her brilliant, if not slightly bloodshot,
green eyes. In fact, he didn’t ever think he’d seen a woman so lovely, not in
all of his travels.
 
Though she was
small, which implied delicacy, she radiated a great strength. Certainly if her
story was true and she had indeed traveled alone, then she was brave as well.
Very admirable qualities which made him soften toward her ever so slightly,
though he knew his reaction could cost him his life.

“We will eat your roast first and
talk later,” he said, rising from his fire pit on legs as thick as tree trunks.

He marched past Alisanne and out
into the ward beyond.
 
In truth, she
wasn’t feeling nearly as strong and confident as she was projecting. Days of
traveling plus a night in the driving rain had rendered her weak and exhausted.
But this man was harsh and cold and his manner gave her the strength she needed
to convince him of her purpose. It was a distinct surprise that she had
actually reached this place alive, and she was not going to let him discourage
her from her intent.