Lady of the Lake (6 page)

If they ignored the dire predictions of the past, in less than a generation they would all be dead.

In the fat years recently past, the ritual had dwindled to sacrificing the first grains and fruits gleaned from the fields, as a symbolic offering to guarantee the harvest. In years of dire tribulation such as this, only the sacrifice of the first blood—the son of the king or the king himself— could appease the angry gods.

Venn was the atheling of Leam. Only he could end the drought. Only his blood and body offered in sacrifice could guarantee Leam’s survival past this year. That fact may as well be written in stone. Everyone knew it as truth. Venn’s only salvation was rain. Plentiful rain falling in the days left in July was the only means to avert Venn’s early and untimely death.

Tala had no more faith in the old ways than she had trust in the new. She didn’t believe her only brother’s death would bring on the rain. She didn’t believe the old druid Tegwin had the power to work such magic. In her heart she believed that Venn’s sacrifice would change nothing.
He would give his life and the drought would continue, unabated by divine intervention.

Tala knew even less about the new god, this Christ that her guardian, King Alfred, revered. But she knew he must be powerful if King Guthrum was willing to put his people to death if they did not accept the talisman of the cross.

If only there was someone wise and knowing she could talk to who could explain all of this to her. But she had no one. She had only this ancient lake of her ancestors, the silent spirits hidden in its depths and the confusion of her thoughts.

She prayed hard, pouring out her troubles to the Lady of the Lake. Tala sought insight and clarity, hope and solace. To make certain her desperate petition was heard, she removed her gold torque from her throat. Prayers without a sacrificial offering were an abomination to the gods.

“Lady, I beseech you. Give me a sign. Show me what I must do to save my brother’s life. He is just a boy, a puny man-child of no value to you. Venn cannot bring the rain, make the seeds sprout in your earth or hold the mighty Vikings behind your river Avon. His thin body will not feed your fish for more than a day. So why must he be taken from me? I need him. I love him. Take this torque and forget my little brother. You’ll be much happier with the gold.”

Tala extended her torque over the water. She held her breath, waiting for the Lady of the Lake to rise up from the water and accept her offering.

The dark water at her feet moved, then churned as if gathering power. A shadowy form broke the surface at Tala’s feet, throwing silvery drops onto her bare legs and breaking up the reflection of her golden torque. Her eyes followed the dark wake that bisected the still waters and her heart hammered in her throat. This was what she sought—a sign.

The fluid tension of the surface erupted in a blinding,
foamy arc of silvery water beads. Tala threw her golden torque at the breaking wave. The ring of gold spun far, far out over the black water.

A pale limb shot up from a bank of waterweeds. It snatched the gold torque in midair and splashed below the surface.

Ripples washed quickly back to the pier where Tala stood. The lake undulated softly, then stilled once more. And Tala ap Griffin burst into tears.

The precious golden torque that had declared her a princess to all of her people—that she was willing to sacrifice for the life of her brother—had been snapped out of the air not by the Lady of the Lake, but by a fish.

T
he granary was first on Edon’s scheduled tour with Embla Silver Throat the next morning. He found the dusty building well stocked and dry. All provisions stored in barrels and well-constructed crates were in good shape. Ample seed was put aside for next year’s planting. Edon was a stickler for such details and always insisted upon holding back more than necessary.

Best of all, the granary was clean and rat free. Varmints were kept at bay by having numerous good mousers where they were most needed.

The deep well sunk in the center of the stockade and the one inside the keep were rank and fetid. Water for all purposes had to be carried from the Avon River, outside the gates of the fortress. The river itself had dropped five feet below the lip of the gate built to flood the moat surrounding the fortress on the deliberately raised motte of Warwick.

The absence of water in the deep moat to put out an assaulting enemy’s fire made Embla Silver Throat’s wooden stockade even more ridiculous, especially with so much ready stone about. Edon couldn’t see how she could be so dense. And in her greed to acquire more and more
land, she allowed her freemen to continue to slash and burn the woods, when the land was dry tinder!

His second order of business that morning was to stop the felling of the woods. Edon had already outlawed all fires save the cooking fires in the fortress kitchen, the hearth fires in each Viking’s longhouse and the forge in the ironmaster’s shed.

The stillroom wasn’t as cool as it should be. Cool meant icy to a Viking, and Edon was typical in that regard. The room was located at the bottom of a declivity cut into the hill. The spring beneath had also run dry because of the drought.

The groove cut in the stone floor of the stillroom, where normally chilly water from the spring should flow freely, was covered with a layer of moss. Edon used his knife to dislodge it. His reward for that effort was a few beads of water.

He squinted in the dim light of the underground stillroom. Was it smaller than he remembered? Ten years was a long time to recall details.

“This is unusual. Springs of this sort rarely dry up,” he remarked casually.

“Aye,” Embla agreed testily. “Warwick’s wells churn out nothing but poison or dust, thanks to the witch.”

Here we go again,
Edon thought. He remained on one knee, studying the chamber carved into the bedrock. The stillroom retained some but not much dampness, a quality necessary for the preservation of meats and vegetables. The trench in the floor had no pools in it, though it should. “Did you enlarge this chamber, niece?”

Embla started, surprised by his question. “No, it is as it was. I saw no need to improve it,” she said gruffly.

“Thank you,” Edon said.

He’d built the stillroom himself ten years ago, when he’d chosen Warwick as his home. It was curious. Rivers
might alter their course, but in his experience, waters in the bedrock rarely did.

He rose to his feet, brushing off his hands. “I’d like to see the quarry next.”

On their way to the granite quarry, they encountered Embla’s soldiers riding out for their daily patrol. Edon spoke to the captain of his nephew Harald’s disappearance. When Asgart replied, he talked of Harald in the past tense. Edon noted that.

Of course, Guthrum had told him what he believed had happened to their nephew. Edon did not want to accuse Lady Embla of murdering her husband without proof. That proof might only show up in the form of his nephew’s body. Edon intended to investigate the matter thoroughly.

The truth would out eventually.

He spent the morning at the quarry, making careful notations on the drawings Maynard the Black prepared for him. Embla disdained to discuss anything with Maynard, even though he was obviously trusted by the jarl. She thought all Mercians fit only to be thralls and therefore unworthy of conversing with her. Edon was glad when the woman walked off to another part of the quarry.

“Do you see any indication of the work here at the quarry having any effect on the springs under the cliffs?”

“None, my lord,” Maynard said somberly. He was always somber. Maynard dwelt in concrete reality and predictable certainties.

“And what do you make of three wells and two springs on Warwick Hill gone dry as yesterday’s cake?”

Maynard shook his head. “It defies explanation, but proof of the drought is abundant There has been no rain since the first of May, I am told. Each of the rivers we crossed in coming from Anglia were low. Low, but not empty, lord.”

“And what do you make of the Leam?” Edon leaned on a rock and gazed over the forest In the distant wood,
the sun glistened and sparkled on the canopy of trees, lighting them with silver. The riverbed that meandered east toward Willoughby could be traced by the march of brown, dying trees lining its dry bank.

“Were I a gambling man,” Maynard said cautiously, “I would wager someone has damned the Leam or diverted it. A river that size does not dry up in a year of no rain. Perhaps when the rains come, the springs will flow.”

“You believe there must be rain above the earth for water to flow over it? How do you account for the vast quantity of water in the seas? Rock and soil are porous. Wouldn’t you assume the sea presses against its shores and seeps underneath? It does not rain in Syria, yet we have both drunk from springs as sweet and as pure as fresh rain. Remember how good the water in Petra tasted to us?”

“I remember.” Maynard nodded. His prominent forehead furrowed in deep ridges. “What we need is a water diviner. There were many such among the druids in years past.”

“A good idea. I shall make inquiries of the Mercians. Now, let us walk to the top of the cliff and have a good look over the valley. Perhaps we can trace the water-courses from the highest mount.”

“An eagle would be the best mount,” Maynard suggested dryly. It was the closest he’d ever come to making a joke.

When they finished viewing Warwick valley from the highest pinnacle, Edon left Maynard to his work of plotting and mapping. The jarl strolled down into the quarry and stood beside Embla, watching her laborers toil in the pit.

Huge slabs of granite were cleanly split from the rim of the crater using the time-honored tools of fire and water. The slabs were then chiseled into quarter-ton blocks, suitable for the walls of Edon’s fortress and keep.

“I don’t believe I saw buildings enough at your compound to house this many stonecutters.” Edon made a casual
observation. It seemed ludicrous to him to consider the woman his niece when she was at least five years older than he. “Are there barracks nearby?”

“Stonecutters?” Embla countered, looking surprised by the question. “These are not the skilled masons you hired, sire. They are thralls, slaves taken in conquest of the land.”

“Then let me put my question another way. Where do yonder thralls sleep?”

“There.” Embla pointed to a cave in the pit.

A yawning chasm gouged out of the earth provided little shelter from the elements for the men forced to work in the quarry. They were a sorry lot, to Edon’s eye.

As a commodity, slaves were as important to a large holding as its cattle, and should be as well fed and well cared for. Clearly, Embla was not of the same opinion as he about many things. Her slaves labored endlessly to the crack and rhythm of a whip. Judging from the look of their thin bodies, their food was at subsistence level.

“I see,” Edon said. “Then you have more slaves tending the fields, do you?”

“Nay, the freemen have that right. Surely, Lord Edon, you have not been so long in the east that you forgot the ways of your own world?”

“No, I’m just curious about the changes here. I recall no slaves on Harald Jorgensson’s last accounting, and I am new to this wergild that Guthrum has imposed.”

Embla ignored the scold inherent in Edon’s words. She had her scribe making the accounts ready for his immediate inspection. She would prove him in error about her there, too. She could account for every gold mark put into and taken out of the jarl’s holding much better than stupid Harald ever could have. He would have given one-tenth of everything away as a tithe!

By her reckoning, the long-absent owner, Jarl Edon Halfdansson, had always made a handsome profit off her
farmstead and his shire. A profit that by rights she should have kept, for it was her labor at overseeing all the work that accomplished any gain.

“The kings’ wergild takes some getting used to,” Embla granted. “The truth is it has little effect in a frontier where Watling Street peters out in yon miserable haunted wood. King Guthrum thinks his road an open avenue from London to Chester, but north of Warwick it comes to naught. As for the Mercians, they stay out of my way or else pay dearly for entering Warwick.”

“These men—” Edon pointed to the pit “—are Mercians paying your dear price?”

“Aye. A pity they are so weak they die quickly. But there is a goodly supply, for they breed endlessly and are stupid as horses. My patrols easily replenish their numbers.”

“Pray tell me what you do with women so foolish as to walk on Watling Street?”

Embla answered his appalled question without batting an eye. “There is work in the kitchens and at the looms or at whatever task they are assigned. I have found it expedient to give my thanes free use of captured Mercian women. It keeps them better controlled, and I have heard no complaints from my soldiers regarding that.”

“No, I imagine you haven’t,” Edon murmured. “I can’t help but remark upon the fact that I saw no Mercian farmsteads as I crossed the shire. There were as many Mercians as Saxons here when last I visited. Danes were the oddity. I had to pay a very high price to acquire the rights to Warwick Hill.”

“Only Danes may be tenants in the Danelaw, my lord. That is Guthrum’s law.”

Edon thought it pointless to discuss Guthrum’s law with this wife of his nephew. Her interpretation and his would never match. “I suggest we table a discussion of politics
until evening. Nothing is to be changed until I have toured the tin and silver mines. We will do that tomorrow.”

Edon met Rig on his way down from the quarry. His general’s face was twisted with anger, his large jaw thrust forward. Edon could tell he was grinding his teeth to keep from cursing a blue streak. Edon dismounted and handed Titan’s reins to a stable boy. “What has happened? Don’t spare me the news.”

“The village of Wootton is on fire.” Rig answered in a clipped voice. A fire of a different sort burned in his cool blue eyes.

“How so?” Edon asked, tamping down the alarm that started in his chest. Tala was at Wootton…in Mother Wren’s cottage.

“I went to fetch the atheling as you commanded, lord.” Rig spun on one heel and pointed to a group of four Vikings leaning on their axes in the shade of the ironmonger’s shed. Their faces were contorted with anger, matching Rig’s. “They went to Wootton to cut wood, against your command of this morn.”

“What of Mother Wren?” Edon asked, feeling a chill squeeze his heart Tala would have been sleeping in Wren’s cottage.

“Asgart claims the villagers fled into the forest They captured none of them, not even the old woman.”

That bit of good news relieved Edon’s worries somewhat. Then Rig squared his shoulders and gave him the rest of his news. “The cottage where you left the princess of Leam in the care of the old woman was empty when I got to Wootton to inspect the fire’s damage. There was no proof that anyone was living in that abode.”

“What?” Edon said, confused.

“I found a chest containing the lady’s clothing, and her jewels among the smoking ashes, lord. I have put it in your keep. But that was all I found worth retrieving. There were
no furnishings or cooking pots or beds of any kind. I fear you have been tricked, lord. The princess of Leam does not live in the village of Wootton.”

“Humph!” Edon grunted as he crossed the ward to the ironmaster’s shed. So much for his plan of visiting his bride in the evening ahead. The little minx had done him in. He turned his thoughts to the problem of the burned village and the Vikings who’d disobeyed his orders. Tala would have to wait.

The Vikings were newcomers to Warwick. They were refugees from Lombardy, Danes that had been trapped in the terrible famine that had racked province after province on the Continent. Edon looked from one wary face to the other and elected the eldest of the four as their leader. “Did you not hear my orders this morn, Viking?”

“Aye, lord, we heard you.” The man stood his ground on crooked legs, bowed from starvation. “I am known here as Archam the Bent. I am responsible for the fire, not my sons.”

“Why did you disobey my order?”

The four men exchanged glances. “Our holding begins at Wootton Wood,” the youngest answered. “Father, tell the jarl the truth, else he will have all of our heads up on stakes.”

“Be quiet, Ranulf,” said a brother.

“Are these your sons, Viking?” Edon directed his words to the elder. His grizzled head rocked up and down in affirmation. Edon could not place his age; his face and throat were too wrinkled and worn by the sun and wind and the loss of a great deal of weight.

“They are each my son. Once I had ten sons all as straight and tall as you. These three are all I have left.”

“Then why would you endanger them by going against my orders?” Edon demanded. When no answer came, he turned to Rig and commanded, “Take the eldest beyond the palisade and cut off his head.”

All four Vikings started as Rig and his soldiers stepped forward instantly to carry out Edon’s command.

“My lord!” the youngest protested, struggling to protect his brother. “We had no choice in burning the village. Asgart told us to clear the village land and plant it today. It was the only hide he would spare us.”

“Aye.” The father broke his proud silence, speaking from desperation. “We must plant our field now, else there will be no grain in our larder this winter. Midsummer is past.”

“When did you arrive in Warwick?”

“Last full moon, Jarl Edon,” said the youngest son. “We were just given our land assignment this rising.”

And from the look of them, a month ago they could not have swung an axe, any one of them. “How many are you? Wives, children and thralls?” Edon asked.