Lady of the Lake (10 page)

Tala had not noticed the swift passage of time, but the jarl was correct. A huge moon hovered on the brink of the starry sky, amber in color, like a polished gem. She made her farewells and accompanied Edon down the stairs to the lower floor of his keep.

A young man took up a torch, lighting their way as they moved out of doors. Edon sent the youth to fetch their horses while he and Tala waited near the compound’s well.

Tala felt a moment’s curiosity for the well. It was covered with wood and iron bars. There were no buckets or troughs nearby and the dirt all around it was dry.

She divined the reason it was sealed from its sulfuric scent. The water had gone bad. This year many wells had become tainted. But she sensed that less than twenty feet away, under the caprock, there was plentiful water, as sweet and pure as the water in her very own pool.

The jarl walked farther, stopping at a pleasant rise in the enclosure. There they caught a breeze and had a clear view of the pastoral valley beyond the palisade.

The air was comfortable, cooler than it had been during the long, hot summer day. No mist formed, not even above the steady flow of the river Avon. It had been a long, long time since Tala had last seen her land shrouded with fog or nourished by a mist. She missed the element and knew it was as necessary to the well-being of Leam as the water in her healing spring.

She and Edon stood awhile in companionable silence, each studying the strangely colored moon. “It’s an odd moon for a peaceful summer night,” Tala observed.

“Certes.”
Edon nodded. “My oracle would call that a portend of war on my doorstep if he had eyes to see it.”

“Which of the men at your board is your oracle?”

“Theo, the curly haired rascal that fathered the baby you adored.”

Tala started. She turned and shot a penetrating look at the jarl. She had assumed he’d fathered the infant and that the women at his board were his concubines. Such were the practices of the Vikings. They were like the stags in the woods, fighting each other until only the strongest male stood as stud for an entire herd of does.

Reading her look exactly for what it was, Edon sobered. “No, young Thomas is not my son.” He decided this was the moment to correct any further misunderstandings she harbored. “Nor are any of the women of my household my chattel or concubines. I chose not to complicate things here in Warwick.”

“I see.” Tala understood that men often had concubines. It was an accepted way of life in both Leam and the Danelaw, and the Celtic custom most highly frowned upon by the bishops of King Alfred’s court.

“Do you?” Edon regarded her smooth face for a long moment. With a woman of such beauty as a wife, he would be hard-pressed to ever desire another woman. That was a very dangerous thought. It made him wonder if the princess of Leam knew how appealing she was.

Without thinking, he raised his hand and caught her chin with his fingers, lifting her brow to the shimmering light of the moon. “I want to kiss you, Tala ap Griffin.”

He was much more honest in stating his desires than Tala. The truth was, she very much liked being in his company, being able to look at him anytime she liked, being close enough to feel that surge of blood when his arm brushed against hers or his heated gaze impacted with her sly inspections. Had she prolonged her stay as his guest, hoping for a kiss? The truthful answer was yes, she had. But she knew better than to admit to the obvious, so she made a conscious decision to be willful.

“Why?”

Edon almost laughed at her perverse question. Did she realize how quiet the compound had become? It was as
though every living, breathing creature within the palisade waited to find out if the jarl of Warwick could woo the aloof and untouchable princess of Leam.

Her royal birth did not affect the beating of her heart, the scent of her skin and how both appealed to him. She was a unique woman, beautiful and desirable. Edon was surprised to discover how much that mattered. He’d been prepared to marry her and astonished to find he liked her.

His fingers spread along the line of her jaw as he slid his other arm around her back, drawing her body flush against his. Edon bent his head and captured her lips, tasting her mouth for the first time.

She yielded almost at once. Her body curved into his as perfectly as if she had been made for him. Soft breasts and warm hips cradled and welcomed him. Her sweet mouth became a flower opening. His ardent tongue made a diligent quest to ignite her fire. She had no clear idea how to kiss him to stir his passion. The art had to be taught to her. It gave Edon great pleasure to begin the first lesson.

Tala shuddered as he deepened the kiss. His arms enveloped her, making her feel small and weak against the power of his embrace and the hardness of his body pressed against hers. She did not know where to put her hands, but the urge to touch him overwhelmed her. She clasped his waist, finding the cloth of his fine tunic under her fingers. Beneath that was a netting of smooth and rippling muscle that tightened just as surely as her own belly did in response to his touch. Most delicious was the warm heat of his skin itself, resilient, smooth and soft against the pads of her fingertips.

His lips became hard, then softened wildly, and she could feel the exquisite sharpness of his closely shaved beard on her face and her lips. It was the most agonizing torment, tickling and teasing at the same time that it demanded even further surrender from her. She opened her mouth and accepted the profound intrusion of his tongue.

Far from being shocked or repelled, she found his taste as heady as his scent. Edon of Warwick was all-man, powerful and strong, stirring inside her the wants and desires of a woman in need.

One such kiss was not enough for him. He took ten kisses and gave ten more in as many hammering heartbeats. Her blood coursed in her veins, quickening.

“Come inside and bide awhile. ‘Tis early yet. I’ll return you to Mother Wren before the cock crows,” Edon promised huskily. They were well suited as man and wife.

A shiver whipped so strongly through Tala’s belly that she almost gave in. She was a virgin, five years past the age of marriage. The secrets his caresses conveyed to her body spoke of pleasures unknown yet so desired.

Then a scream broke the silence and promise of the night to come. Tala jumped away, released in the same instant the Viking jarl drew his sword.

A second scream, higher pitched and more desperate than the first, spun her around, to track the shrill plea for help to its source.

Edon located the origin before Tala did. “Stay here!” he commanded, rushing off into the darkness toward the byre that held his menagerie. Then all hell broke loose.

“Here they are,” Gwynnth whispered excitedly.

“Wheest,
Gwynnth!” Venn cast a frantic look into the dark ward of Warwick fortress. Night had come. Four fierce Vikings stood watch, two at the closed gates, two at the entrance to the keep. The evening meal was being served on the upper floor of the keep and in the longhouses inside the palisade.

“Please, Venn. I want one. Get it for me.”

“Be quiet, I said. Do you want us to get caught?” Gwynnth never gave such a silly idea a thought. No one would dare harm or touch her. She examined the cage containing the small, fluffy, long-eared animals. They had
a name for the creatures now: the Danes called them rabbits. They hopped about, silent, restless, chewing on greens thrown onto the bottom of their cage. Their bright, round eyes never blinked as she poked her fingers between the iron slats of the curiously made cages.

“They come in all sorts of colors, Venn. There is a black one. That’s the one I want,” Gwynnth declared imperiously. “Come, take it from the cage for me.”

Venn turned away from his noisy sister to look at the pens and cages in the byre. The rumbling growl of wild animals and the restless stamping of only Lugh knew what made the short hair at the back of his neck stand on end.

Something clattered and Gwynnth cried out, “Ow! It bit me!”

“Will you be quiet?” Impatient and angry, Venn started, ready to clobber the stupid girl.

Gwynnth sucked her fingers. Rabbits were jumping everywhere, bounding out the open door of the cage, hopping, scampering in all directions.

“Gwynnth, look what you’ve done! Quick! Help! They’re getting out of the cage!”

Venn tried to scoop up several of the beasts, but before he could shove them inside, four more jumped at him, struck his chest and fell to the floor. He slammed the gateshut and stuffed the peg across its hasp.

“What goes here!” growled a Viking as he stepped into the byre and held a torch aloft. “Hey, you, boy! What do you do to the rabbits? Get out of here!”

Rabbits ran everywhere, scampering in and out of the light. Gwynnth bolted out the door opposite the shouting Viking. Cursing his own curiosity, Venn darted around a haystack.

Outside of the byre it was dark. There were buildings and structures aplenty to use as places to hide. Venn dove behind a pile of quarry stones—the huge monoliths the Vikings used to make a new wall of stone outside the
wooden palisade. It was through a narrow breach in their defense that Venn and Gwynnth had entered the compound.

“Venn, I’m scared,” Gwynnth wailed.

“Be quiet!” he commanded for the last time, out of patience completely. Lugh help them, if she hadn’t been so greedy they wouldn’t be here, risking their very lives just to get her a rabbit.

Catching hold of his sister’s hand, he shoved Gwynnth over the biggest stones. “Run to Taliesin and get out of here.”

Gwynnth dropped ten feet to the ground, but didn’t cry out. She picked herself up and looked up at him, waiting.

“I said run!” Venn commanded. His buckskin vest snagged on a pointed stake. The sharp wood poked into his ribs. Venn winced. He tried to squeeze out the gap that Gwynnth had passed though so easily. He was too big.

“Run, Gwynnth!” he yelled at her.

Gwynnth ran. Quick as a vixen, she ducked under the brushwood stacked like cordwood along the bone-dry moat that circled the palisade.

Venn tore his jerkin free. He leaped clear of the stakes. But something went wrong. His weight shifted as he fell and he crashed onto the brush. The bones in his ankle twisted and his leg gave out. When he struggled back to his feet, he couldn’t do more than hop like the rabbits in the jarl’s menagerie. And halfway down the inky trail to the river bottom, Venn blundered into the cruelest Viking he’d ever in his twelve years of life known.

Unmoved by the unexpected impact, Embla Silver Throat snared a prize she’d never thought to capture—the atheling of Leam. And she knew instantly how to turn a blunder into a boon. But first she made certain the gamely limping atheling of Leam was her captive forever—by finishing a task that he’d only started. She saw to it that he broke his neck.

E
don ran to the break in the palisade where the wood wall butted against newly laid, impermeable stone. He climbed the cyclopean masonry, driven by sounds of strife over the wall. From the slick gray stone, he caught hold of the sharp, pointed stakes and pulled himself to the top.

Balancing precariously, Edon found the source of that pain-filled, bloodcurdling scream.

At the edge of the motte, Embla Silver Throat battled ferociously to subdue a captive. She yanked her opponent’s head up by a hank of long hair and raised her double-edged sword high above her head.

“Stop!” Edon roared. He jumped off the twelve-foot wall, drawing his own blade in midair. “Hold your arm!” He landed on the balls of his feet, his sword ready to strike. “I said
drop your weapon!
What goes here? What are you doing outside the gates, Embla?”

“Wolf!” Embla Silver Throat spun around, clearly startled by his unexpected appearance on the scene. “What do you here?”

The boy fell to the dirt, instinctively, covering his head with his arms to protect his life.

“I asked what this is about,” Edon demanded in answer.

Thinking fast, Embla pointed to a leather satchel lying
on the battered grass where she and the boy had been fighting. She panted, struggling to get her wind.

“I saw this ruffian at the well!” Her chest heaved, emphasizing her distress. “I watched him…try to dump…that sack in the well.” She lowered her sword, breathing hard. “The wood slats…prevented him…from finishing his task.”

Edon bent and secured the satchel. It weighed next to nothing. He opened it and saw its contents were naught but roots and twigs, dirty grasses.

“He saw me and ran,” Embla continued.

Venn took the Vikings’ discussion as his chance to crawl away. The minute he moved, Embla kicked him solidly in the ribs.

Edon heard the boy’s grunt of pain and the sharp expulsion of all wind from his chest. He moved to protect the lad from the woman’s vicious temper.

“That’s no reason to try to kill him,” Edon argued. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What are you doing outside the gate?” he repeated.

Embla ran her forearm across her sweaty brow. “There has been no order to remain within the gates,” she countered quickly. “Forgive me for not sounding an alarm. I saw no reason to call someone to assist me. I thought it best to catch him before he got away. I believe he is in league with the witch who poisoned our well.”

Edon lifted the satchel and sniffed its contents. It didn’t take magical spells to poison a well. Poisonous herbs and roots would do the trick. The substances inside the sack emitted a stingingly pungent odor.

“Is it poisons, lord?” Embla asked fearfully.

“It is something potent.” Edon closed the satchel. Poisons remained to be detected in better light He sheathed his sword and took hold of the youth’s jerkin, hauling him to his feet.

“Odin save us! Look, he has tattoos!” Embla exclaimed.
Edon’s twisting grip on the boy’s leather jerkin revealed an intricately painted shoulder. “He’s a murdering Celt!”

Rig came running at the forefront of a bevy of armed warriors, some carrying blazing torches above their heads. That gave Edon an immediate advantage—light so the boy could be identified. His face was common, but the dragon in flight tattooed on his shoulder was unforgettable.

Edon handed Rig the satchel of herbs. The boy clutched his ribs, seeking his second wind. Edon tightened his grip on the boy’s jerkin, to get a good look at his face.

“Hold still, lad,” he said warningly. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Let me go,” Venn demanded. “I didn’t do anything! That’s not my pack.”

“I saw him throw it down from the palisade just before he jumped,” Embla accused.

“That’s a lie!” Venn gasped. His hatred for Embla Silver Throat got in the way of reason. Panic and residual pain choked him. The bitch had tried to kill him!

The Viking who’d been given the satchel examined a fistful of roots.

“Bloodroot and nightshade, Lord.” Rig named the roots with mounting alarm. “There is enough poison in this satchel to kill every man, woman and child in the shire.”

“It’s not mine!” Venn clawed at his jerkin, ripping at the rawhide ties. The Viking jarl held the garment so tight he couldn’t breathe. He had to escape somehow. Venn twisted, shifting his weight onto his left leg. Whispering an incantation to Lugh for strength, he drove his fist into the jarl’s belly and broke free.

Edon was caught off guard by the punch, not that it hurt him. It didn’t. The boy’s garment was old. It split apart and the youth burst free of Edon’s grip, leaving him holding a torn, ragged jerkin.

Furious, her rage far from spent, Embla saw her chance.
She lunged after the boy, shouting, “Stand aside, Wolf! I’ll save you the trouble of dirtying your blade with the blood of a Mercian.”

She swung her sword in a high arch, gathering the strength and power to decapitate the fleeing boy in one mighty stroke.

Venn’s right leg buckled under him. He tumbled to the ground, magically escaping the sweep of Embla’s blade as its point thudded into the earth.

“Damn you!” Edon shouted, leaping to stop a tragedy before it could happen. He grabbed Embla and shoved her aside, halting another death strike. “No! That’s enough, I said!”

He straddled the boy, shielding him from further assault. “No matter his crime, no boy of Warwick will be dispatched in blind rage so long as I am jarl here!”

Venn rolled into a ball, covering his head with his arms, certain death was upon him. His heart hammered in his ears so ferociously he couldn’t make sense of the Viking shouts around him.

The fierce giant who’d sniffed Embla’s satchel of herbs wrenched the woman’s sword from her double-fisted grip. She shrieked and cursed him.

“Rig, come to me,” Edon shouted above the tumult.

“I am here, lord.” Rig pushed his way through the circle of growling, angry Vikings.

Edon grasped the boy by his painted shoulder, hauling him back to his feet, then swiftly assessed him from head to toe. He was young, very young. A knot stood out on his forehead. A dark smear of blood marred his swollen mouth.

Embla had clearly delivered a harsh beating before Edon arrived. That she wasn’t already sporting the boy’s severed head as a trophy was a miracle.

“Take charge of this prisoner and secure him. We will investigate this alleged crime of his at first light.”

“Why waste time bringing a witch to justice?” Embla stepped in front of Edon, challenging him. Every Viking drew back to listen to her shouts. “I caught him redhanded at the well. By Odin’s law it is my right to take his life. I say, give him to me. Let me finish what I’ve begun!”

Edon scanned the crowd. Numerous warriors agreed with Embla. They condemned the boy to death without knowing if there was a scrap of evidence against him. None of them had heard the boy deny that the satchel was his. Edon had been near the well and in the ward with Tala for a good while before his scream had broken the peace. Embla’s charge of tampering with the well didn’t jibe with Edon’s own movements. He knew something wasn’t right.

“Perhaps you men came late and did not hear me,” Edon raised his voice so that all present could hear him. “I said no boy or man of Warwick will be summarily killed without proof of evidence of any crime laid against him.”

Rig took the boy in hand, standing fast at Edon’s side against a Viking who shouted back, “What proof do you need?”

“Embla Silver Throat has told you what she saw,” another stated.

“That is good enough for me,” said the first.

“It is not good enough for me,” Edon said forcefully. “And I am jarl here, not you or Embla Silver Throat.”

Edon planted his feet wide and stuck his fists on his hips, glaring at the unruly two backing his nephew’s wife. They were hotheads, longing for the days of pillage and rape, men whose blood rose easily to a fight. To them, Embla was likely a goddess, a Valkyrie who brought them valor and glory in their petty daily battles subduing the Mercians.

Scattered among the rest of the curious were Edon’s well-trained soldiers, armed and dangerous and loyal to the
bone. Maynard nodded as he took a stance directly beside Embla Silver Throat. One flick of Edon’s head in his direction and the king’s niece would be cut in two.

Embla sneered at Edon, then spat at Maynard’s feet, as if saying aloud that Edon didn’t dare command her death. She lifted her haughty chin and tossed her golden braids behind her shoulders.

“Well, Viking?” she demanded. “What say you? I claim that boy as my captive—my slave as forfeit for his losing our battle this night. Give him to me as any jarl would surrender a thrall taken in battle. Order me to not kill him if you will—that suits me. I’ll make him wish he was dead.”

The boy reacted to her words by lunging against Rig’s grip, muttering something. Sarina howled deep in the trees. Edon’s lion roared from within the palisade walls. Every dog and beast within hearing range set to barking and howling. The wind rose from the river and rattled the limbs of the nearby trees.

All of this happened in the span of two heartbeats. Embla took a step back. So did her brave defenders. They looked anxiously around them, as if ghosts or spirits were making all that noise. This was most curiously strange, Edon thought. This boy and Embla were not strangers to one another, but known enemies.

Edon took the ground she yielded, taking two steps forward in front of the Mercian boy.

“Come and take him, niece.” Edon invited her to try, his voice carrying throughout the crowd without effort “Come. Tell me what battle I sent you into this night? My last command to you was heard by all of my thanes and most of yours. You were ordered to tend your loom. Where is the weaving I commanded you to complete?”

Embla spat on the dirt. “I do no womanish work, Wolf of Warwick. I am Guthrum’s own Valkyrie, so named
when he put this necklace round my throat. I am a warriorvoman and can best any man among you.”

Edon laughed outright at that boast. “By Odin’s truth? Not me, woman,” he said, goading her deliberately.

Many that she had bested in the past now looked at her differently. Edon counted few that did not openly admire her gall, for she was clearly brave enough to challenge him. Relaxing his shoulders somewhat, he took another step forward and lifted his right hand, motioning for her to come to him.

“I am the jarl of Warwick, Embla Silver Throat. I have what you will never have—balls inside my breeks. Come, test me if you dare. I’ll turn you across my knee, bare your arse before every man in Warwick and put the flat of my sword where it will do the most good. You have walked too far trying to wear a man’s shoes. This man will put you in your proper place, make no mistake.”

That brought laughter to the ranks, exactly as Edon intended the insult to do. Embla Silver Throat deserved humiliation to put her in her place. Not that that would bring Harald Jorgensson back to life, Edon thought grimly.

“Go on, Silver Throat,” called out a strapping Viking at Maynard’s side. “Test the jarl’s mettle!”

“Nay, lady, don’t cross the jarl.”

“Do it. What’s a blistered backside? You’re tougher than a boar’s hide!” called another, laughing rudely.

“Aye, do it,” said another, with contempt flavoring his voice. “Which of us would mind seeing you beaten? It’s long past the time you got what you deserve, woman.”

“Aye,” said another bitterly, proving there was grave dissension in the ranks, both for and against Embla. “How many of us have wondered in the past just what she carries under her skirts?”

There was moonlight enough to see raging anger burn dark and livid on Embla’s face. Edon said nothing, neither joining the derisive laughter nor encouraging it. He wanted
the woman to back down. He saw clearly that it was not possible to pull her into his camp, cajole or win her over with time. Any hope of peace between them was gone. Edon’s insult, delivered before the men she had commanded in his absence, cut too deep.

Tomorrow he would send her to Guthrum. Better that the king decide Embla’s fate. If she stayed in Warwick much longer, Edon would surely have to kill her. He didn’t want the blood of a woman on his hands.

Edon told Rig to take the boy away. Venn didn’t want to leave this scene now and miss the final confrontation. No one had ever spoken to Embla Silver Throat the way the black-haired Viking did. Her hatred and anger could be tasted on the restless wind. Too soon, the huge blond Viking called Rig clamped his massive hands on Venn’s upper arms and hauled him through the crowd.

Once the captive was removed, Edon squarely faced the remaining Vikings. He drew his sword from its sheath. With a deliberate show of power, he flexed his chest and shoulders, then rammed the point of his long sword into the earth at his feet. That gained him everyone’s attention.

“Let there be no mistake!” His voice rang out loud and clear. “There is room for only one jarl at Warwick! Only one man can be invested with the power of pit and gallows. I stand before you that man. Here is my sword. Any who dare to challenge me, come, take it! Wrest the sword of power from the Wolf of Warwick.”

Just yesterday every Viking in Warwick had witnessed Edon’s fierce skill with the sword when Asgart’s head had rolled off his unlucky shoulders. Surely, there were some who thought they could fight as well as he. Some whose arms contained the same power in the stroke of the long sword. Tension ran high through the crowd, but no man came forward to try to take Edon’s weapon.

Embla stood rigid as a stone carving, battling her inner fury, knowing she could not take the jarl in a fair fight.
She vowed to Freya that the time had come for him to die. He would beg for her mercy as did his cowardly nephew, Harald. She would give none. No, she would torture him, draw out his death into weeks and months of agony. The tables would turn soon, and she would hold all the reins of power then.

The confrontation ended. Warriors shook their heads, scoffed or laughed and walked away. All realized there was no need for a whole army to be gathered outside the walls of Warwick.