Bay of Fear (Battle Lords of de Velt Book 3)
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BAY OF FEAR
A Gothic Medieval Romance
By Kathryn Le Veque
© Copyright 2018 by Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
Kindle Edition
Text by Kathryn Le Veque
Cover by Kim Killion
Edited by Scott Moreland
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on any unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.
Kathryn Le Veque Novels
Medieval Romance:
De Wolfe Pack Series:
Warwolfe
The Wolfe
Nighthawk
ShadowWolfe
DarkWolfe
A Joyous de Wolfe Christmas
Serpent
A Wolfe Among Dragons
Scorpion
Dark Destroyer
The Lion of the North
Walls of Babylon
The de Russe Legacy:
The Falls of Erith
Lord of War: Black Angel
The Iron Knight
Beast
The Dark One: Dark Knight
The White Lord of Wellesbourne
Dark Moon
Dark Steel
The de Lohr Dynasty:
While Angels Slept
Rise of the Defender
Steelheart
Shadowmoor
Silversword
Spectre of the Sword
Unending Love
Archangel
Lords of East Anglia:
While Angels Slept
Godspeed
Great Lords of le Bec:
Great Protector
House of de Royans:
Lord of Winter
To the Lady Born
Lords of Eire:
Echoes of Ancient Dreams
Blacksword
The Darkland
Ancient Kings of Anglecynn:
The Whispering Night
Netherworld
Battle Lords of de Velt:
The Dark Lord
Devil’s Dominion
Bay of Fear
Reign of the House of de Winter:
Lespada
Swords and Shields
De Reyne Domination:
Guardian of Darkness
With Dreams
The Fallen One
House of d’Vant:
Tender is the Knight (House of d’Vant)
The Red Fury (House of d’Vant)
The Dragonblade Series:
Fragments of Grace
Dragonblade
Island of Glass
The Savage Curtain
The Fallen One
Great Marcher Lords of de Lara
Lord of the Shadows
Dragonblade
House of St. Hever
Fragments of Grace
Island of Glass
Queen of Lost Stars
Lords of Pembury:
The Savage Curtain
Lords of Thunder: The de Shera Brotherhood Trilogy
The Thunder Lord
The Thunder Warrior
The Thunder Knight
The Great Knights of de Moray:
Shield of Kronos
The Gorgon
The House of De Nerra:
The Falls of Erith
Vestiges of Valor
Realm of Angels
Highland Warriors of Munro:
The Red Lion
Deep Into Darkness
The House of de Garr:
Lord of Light
Realm of Angels
Saxon Lords of Hage:
The Crusader
Kingdom Come
High Warriors of Rohan:
High Warrior
The House of Ashbourne:
Upon a Midnight Dream
The House of D’Aurilliac:
Valiant Chaos
The House of De Dere:
Of Love and Legend
St. John and de Gare Clans:
The Warrior Poet
The House of de Bretagne:
The Questing
The House of Summerlin:
The Legend
The Kingdom of Hendocia:
Kingdom by the Sea
Contemporary Romance:
Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Series:
Valley of the Shadow
The Eden Factor
Canyon of the Sphinx
The American Heroes Anthology Series:
The Lucius Robe
Fires of Autumn
Evenshade
Sea of Dreams
Purgatory
Other non-connected Contemporary Romance:
Lady of Heaven
Darkling, I Listen
In the Dreaming Hour
River’s End
The Fountain
Sons of Poseidon:
The Immortal Sea
Pirates of Britannia Series (with Eliza Knight):
Savage of the Sea by Eliza Knight
Leader of Titans by Kathryn Le Veque
The Sea Devil by Eliza Knight
Sea Wolfe by Kathryn Le Veque
Note: All Kathryn’s novels are designed to be read as stand-alones, although many have cross-over characters or cross-over family groups. Novels that are grouped together have related characters or family groups. You will notice that some series have the same books; that is because they are cross-overs. A hero in one book may be the secondary character in another.
There is NO reading order except by chronology, but even in that case, you can still read the books as stand-alones. No novel is connected to another by a cliff hanger, and every book has an HEA.
Series are clearly marked. All series contain the same characters or family groups except the American Heroes Series, which is an anthology with unrelated characters.
For more information, find it in A Reader’s Guide to the Medieval World of Le Veque.
Author’s Note
Welcome to a real “dark and stormy night” novel!
I adore the Gothic genre – tragic, dark, angsty. Such fun to write and read. This isn’t a traditional Gothic, where the main characters are super emotional and in constant turmoil. There is a great love story in this tale – actually, three or four of them – but there are threads of tragedy and chaos running throughout. Mostly, it’s romance, but told in an unconventional way that I think you’re going to love.
Our hero is Tenner de Velt. He’s the grandson of not only Jax de Velt, but of Christopher de Lohr. Chris’ daughter, Brielle, married Jax’s son, Cassian. That pair – Cassian and Brielle – are the grandparents of Diamantha de Bretagne from “The Questing,” as Diamantha’s mother, Evanthe, is Tenner’s elder sister. I think someday I’m going to have to write Cassian and Brielle’s story since they keep appearing in family trees.
/> The bottom line is that Tenner is the grandson of two of the greatest knights in my Medieval world, and he’s a dynamic, dedicated young knight. I really enjoyed writing about him. His lady love is Annalyla St. Lo, from the House of St. Lo, which doesn’t really have a history in the World of Le Veque yet, but it will. She is sweet, and level-headed, and rather tenacious, which is fun. She’s not afraid to jump in and get her hands dirty, as you’ll see.
As always, a pronunciation key, since you know I like to throw weird names in the reader’s direction:
Baiadepaura – BYE-uh-duh-PARR-uh (baia is “bay” in Portuguese, and “de Paura” is a family name)
Mawgwen – MAH-gwen
Annalyla – Anna-LIE-luh, or just pronounce the two names and put them together – Anna and Lyla.
Of note: There are two different spellings in this novel for de Paura – you will see it as di Paura and also as de Paura. That’s because prior to the Norman Conquest, the name was spelled di Paura. It was the Normans who ‘Normanized’ the name and gave it a Norman spelling – de as opposed to di. Therefore, the two different spellings are not an error.
So, sit back, light a candle, and grab your talisman for a spooky trip into Medieval Cornwall where ghosts live, curses exist, and love conquers all. Just remember… sometimes things aren’t always as they seem!
Enjoy!
Family Tree
As outlined in the novel, Tenner is the grandson of Ajax de Velt and Christopher de Lohr. There is, as of yet, no novel where Cassian de Velt and Brielle de Lohr are the hero and heroine, but that may soon change. Their children appear twice – in the novel “The Questing,” and in the novel “Bay of Fear.”
Children of Cassian de Velt (son of Ajax de Velt from “The Dark Lord”) and Brielle de Lohr (daughter of Christopher de Lohr from “Rise of the Defender”)
Evanthe (Mother to Diamantha de Bocage from “The Questing”)
Genica
Tenner
Blaine
Marius
Melisandra
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Kathryn Le Veque Novels
Author’s Note
Family Tree
The Devil of Baiadepaura
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
About Kathryn Le Veque
THE DEVIL OF BAIADEPAURA
(Cornish folk song, circa 14th century)
On the cliffs of the Cornwall coast,
There lived a ghost,
A fiend with a heart of ash.
When his voice was heard,
Upon his breath, a word,
The shadow of death calls fast.
The Devil, you see,
Lived on in he,
In the stones by the raging sea.
His soul damned by the raging sea.
CHAPTER ONE
Year of Our Lord 1060
Cornwall
It was a dark and stormy night.
His fortress had been under siege since yesterday, when the peasants from the nearby village charged the wood-and-iron gates with their screaming and vitriol. They weren’t an army, but a mob, and with any mob, the mentality of it caused them to do things that men wouldn’t normally do. They were feeding on fear, and fear made them mad. They’d come for something, something tucked back in the bowels of Baiadepaura Castle, and they were going to get it.
They’d come for him.
His home, his great castle, which had been standing for centuries, would not be enough to hold back the mob. The fortress walls were made out of piles of earth, great berms that were covered with grass, and taller than two men standing shoulder-to-feet. At the top of the walls were great pikes made from tree trunks, cut from the forests that filled the center of the country. Precious wood that was also used to build the gates, which had been soaked by the storm that had blown in from the sea, but not enough. Now, beneath the bright moon as the storm scattered, the gates were burning as the villagers built great bonfires against them.
It was only a matter of time before they collapsed.
Standing on the ground level of the keep, the lord of Baiadepaura could see the gates from where he stood, peering from a window in a chamber once used by his father to conduct business. He’d been standing here for quite some time, watching the activity, or what he could see of it. Mostly, he could smell it. Smoke was heavy in the air, mingling with the damp sea air. It was heavy and acrid, and he coughed as he breathed it in.
But it was more than the smoke that caused him to cough. The unfortunate fact was that he was sick, too, like most of the villagers, and that was why they’d come. They’d come to punish the odd, silent lord living in the old Roman ruins on the cliff as if he had somehow brought a plague to their people, a sickness that was killing them in droves. Those who weren’t sick were terrified that they would be the next ones to become covered with sores, wracked with pain, before dying a hideous death.
They blamed the lord in the castle by the sea for everything.
But it wasn’t his fault. Heavyset and balding, the lord coughed into a rag in his hand, one that was covered in blood from his lungs. He hadn’t brought the sickness to the village; he never left the castle because he was mute and afraid of people he could not communicate with. To the villagers, however, he was a man of evil and mystery. The more he remained hidden in the fortress, the more they spoke of him in hushed tones. They feared him, and rumor had it that he could control the weather. If a storm blew in, it was because the lord was unhappy, and if fire consumed the crops or the scrub around the village, it was because the lord was cursing them.
They were terrified of the man that could not speak. Some said that if he did, he had a forked tongue and the words of the Devil would come forth.
That was how he knew the villagers were coming for him.
The Devil of Baiadepaura.
In truth, the lord didn’t fear much for himself, but he did fear for his wife and child. They were in the chamber above him, both of them near death with the same sickness he had. The castle did business with the village two miles north and he had servants who would buy food from the marketplace there, but those servants were untrustworthy and cheated him constantly, knowing he couldn’t verbally reprimand them or even banish them.
Being a gentle and confused soul, he wouldn’t. They were servants left over from his father, a truly evil man, who had, indeed, swindled and mistreated the villagers of Treskin during his reign of terror. His father had been the real Devil of Baiadepaura. It had been the cheating, cruel servants who had brought the sickness to him from the village, but it was the sins of the father that now haunted the son named Faustus de Paura.
It was Faustus who had paid dearly for his father’s evil, a man who had kept his mute son caged up like an animal for most of his early life. Only towards the end of his life, when he knew he was dying, had his father released him, telling him how stupid and freakish he was, cursing him with every breath he took. He’d even purchased a slave girl from one of the many ships that passed the coast on their way north to Eire, a slave girl who couldn’t speak because her former master had cut her tongue out. His father had given him the slave girl as some manner of cruel joke, but the joke turned against him when Faustus and Anyu, the girl, had fallen in love.
A new world opened up for Faustus with the introduction of Anyu. She’d been so very sweet to him, and because she had been a concubine with duties in the days before her beau
ty had left her, she was able to read and write, and she taught Faustus how to write. It was how they communicated, mostly, and even now, Faustus had used the skill his wife had taught him to write a note to the villagers upon the tanned hide of a sheep, explaining that although he was sorry for their sickness, he had nothing to do with it. He begged them for their mercy.
But he suspected it would do no good.
On the floor above him, Anyu and their infant son lay dying, and the villagers who believed Faustus was responsible for the plague that swept their town were coming to kill him because of it. Faustus couldn’t chance them getting their hands on Anyu and the baby. He couldn’t take the chance that his wife and son would know a horrible death. Therefore, in his heart of hearts, he knew what he had to do.
As the gate began to crumble into ashes and heavy, black smoke shot up into the sky, Faustus left the sheepskin note on the table in his father’s chamber, rolled up to protect the ink from smoke or water damage, and took a dagger, the only dagger he had, and made his way up to the chamber where his family was.
The thieving servants had long since fled, so there was no one to tend the sick. Faustus had been doing it himself, and as he climbed to the top of the old, creaking stairs and made his way into the chamber, he could see Anyu lying on their bed with the baby pulled up against her. As Faustus came near, he could tell simply by the look on her face that the baby was gone.
Her pale, plain face was full of sorrow and Faustus’ features crumpled, but just a little; he couldn’t give in to his grief, not when he had a task to complete. He loved Anyu too much to allow her to fall victim to the mob. Their perfect life was about to come to an end and he would be the one to end it. Even now, they were probably kicking away the burning gate and making their way inside the courtyard.
He had little time.
With tears streaming down his face, he smiled at his wife, who was looking up at him with utter grief, yet total trust. They couldn’t speak to one another, but it didn’t matter. Their expressions, their touch, said more than words ever could. Anyu reached up a blackened hand to him, with fingers rotted by the disease, and pulled him down to his knees.
Together, they wept over their son, and they kissed one another, reassuring them that their love was still strong. Nothing could take that from them. The smell of smoke was becoming heavier now, and Faustus could hear the shouts in the bailey as the villagers began their hunt for the Devil they believed responsible for their pain. There was no more time to waste.