Sandra Hill - [Vikings I 03] (34 page)

“Well, I was thinking that perchance you could—”

“
Me?
What? What are you planning? Oh, Lord,” she said as realization seemed to hit her like a lightning bolt, “you want me to rob some graves, do you not?”

Eadyth smiled mirthlessly. “Nay, even I would not go
that
far. I think if we used some animal bones from the kitchen butcherings, and mangled them a bit, Eirik might not question too closely.” She looked hopefully to Britta. “What do you think?”

“I think you are daft.”

They had no more time to discuss the plan then because Girta knocked on the chamber door, announcing happily,
“Riders approach carrying the Ravenshire colors. It must be Eirik and young John returning from Glastonbury. Hurry.”

Eadyth pulled Britta into a hug, thanking her in a heartfelt whisper. “I will never forget what you are doing for me.”

“Methinks I will ne’er forget it, either,” Britta grumbled as she went off to gather bones.

Eadyth had just got to the bailey when Eirik and his retainers rode in. John jumped from his horse and rushed into her arms, talking excitedly.

While she hugged and kissed him over and over, he exclaimed, “You should have seen the funeral, Mother. There were ever so many people, and all of ’em cryin’ for the king. And there were two hundred white horses with gold bridles. And Prince Edwy and Prince Edgar had their own ponies. And I learned to play dice…”

Eadyth shot a glare at Eirik, who was dismounting. “Dice?”

But John just rushed on, pushing his way with some embarrassment out of her continued embrace, “…and King Edred and some priest named Dunstan talked to me about Father, and they asked me about some man, Steven, I think…leastways, the king and this…”

John rambled on and finally Eadyth shooed him up the castle steps where Larise and Emma were waiting. Eadyth turned then and walked into her husband’s arms, holding on to him tightly. She could not stop the tears which streamed down her face. Every moment that she had left with Eirik would be precious.

Eirik looked down at Eadyth with surprise. She had never been so demonstrative in public before. Well, she had been worried about her son’s fate, and he and John had been delayed overlong with Dunstan’s maneuverings. Relief, no doubt, accounted for her squeezing the very breath from his lungs and the profuse tears which wet the front of his tunic.

More than that, he hoped her embrace meant that she had missed him. As much as he had missed her.

I love her,
Eirik thought with wonder. There was no ques
tion in his mind now. It had taken only one day away from her for Eirik to come to that realization, but he had not wanted to tell her in his letters. He wanted to see her face the first time he told her of his love.

I love her.

Eirik gazed down at his sobbing wife and smiled. It did not matter if she was shrewish on occasion—more than on occasion, actually, he thought with a rueful smile. And he could put up with her domineering ways—up to a point. Another rueful smile twitched at his lips. As long as she continued to match him in the bed sport…and tell him she loved him…and provide a warm family for him and their children…and….

Eirik’s thoughts trailed off as he realized,
I just love her. There is no logical reason. She has snared me good and well. The sharp-tongued, waspish witch!

“Shush, dearling,” Eirik said, kissing the top of her hair and pulling her to his side with an arm draped over her shoulder.

Wilfrid stepped forward. “There is much I have to report. That starveling Godric is—”

Eirik waved him aside. “Later. I would…comfort my wife first.”

“But—”

Eirik ignored Wilfrid and the other servants. Larise and Emma were on the other side of the hall, held back by Girta. Later…later he would greet his children good and proper. For now, he wanted…nay,
needed
to be alone with his wife.

No sooner had the bedchamber door closed behind them than Eirik pressed Eadyth back against the door with his arms braced over her head. Her eyes were wild and darting about, refusing to meet his. And she whimpered, as if in pain.

“Eadyth, dearling,” he said huskily, holding her chin in place, forcing her to look up at him, “have you missed me as much as I have missed you?”

“Desperately. I have longed for you desperately,” she admitted without her usual inhibitions.

Eirik’s heart expanded in his chest almost to bursting, and
his staff began to harden against her. He pressed himself against her belly to show her how desperately he “longed” for her, as well.

“No doubt there were many beautiful women at Edred’s court,” she said, tracing his jaw lovingly with a forefinger, then following its path with small kisses.

“No doubt,” he said rawly. His blood thickened and his skin grew hot. As his loins grew heavy with want, he had to force himself not to throw his wife to their bed with undue haste.

She arched her hips upward against him, and Eirik gasped. He saw that she wanted him as fiercely as he wanted her.

“And no doubt those women were…available to you.”

Does she really think I noticed other women after having her?
“No doubt.” To his pleasure, he saw her eyes flash with anger.

“And were they sweet and biddable?”

Is that my shrewish Eadyth looking vulnerable and insecure?
“No doubt,” he said silkily, smiling against her lips.

She nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth to show her displeasure.

He did the same to hers, continuing, “But I had an odd craving for tartness…and a woman who could turn
me
biddable. Do you perchance know of such a woman?”

“Mayhap.” And she smiled against his lips.

Touching the tip of his tongue to her enticing mole, he traced the seam of her lips which parted on an involuntary sigh. “So tell me, my not-so-sweet and not-so-biddable wife, what would you
bid
me do for you?”

“Ease my ache,” she said softly, surprising him. “Can you cure me of this sweet, hot ache which has overcome me?”

Eirik’s knees almost buckled. He lifted her by the waist so her toes barely touched the floor and braced himself against the vee of her legs.

She moaned and arched her neck back.

“I am nigh blind, Eadyth, you know that—”

She made a growling sound of disbelief.

“—therefore you will have to show me where you…
ache
.”

Through half-slitted, passion-glazed eyes, she gazed up at him. Holding his eyes, she boldly placed one of his hands over her heart.

And he almost lost his fast-slipping control. Gripping her head with both hands, he kissed her with savage intensity, unleashing all the pent-up longing of the past two sennights. Urgently, he claimed her lips, entreating her to open for him, then explored her mouth with his tongue. She almost shattered him with the hunger with which she yielded to his forceful domination, returning his kisses in equal measure.

He wanted to devour her. He wanted her to devour him.

He wanted to sear her with the heat that was burning him up. He wanted her to envelop him with her own hot fires.

He wanted to love her until the end of time. And he wanted her to return that love.

But all he could say was, “Eadyth,” softly, wonderingly, over and over, between kisses and frantic caresses and an arousal that grew and grew and grew. Finally, he tore his mouth from hers, breathing raggedly. He could take no more. Lifting her into his arms, he walked a few short steps and laid her gently on the bed.

With jerky, urgent movements, they helped each other disrobe, sometimes tearing cloth in their haste. When they were both naked, gasping for air, Eirik leaned over Eadyth, straddling her body. He put a hand between them, touching the dampness of her maiden hair with familiarity.

“You are ready for me, Eadyth,” he rasped out.

“For days I have been ready for you, my husband. Mayhap a lifetime,” she confessed on a broken whisper.

“I have been thinking about us like this for days,” he said gritting his teeth as he entered her moist silk, slowly, so slowly he could barely breathe. Her hot sheath spasmed around him in welcome, its folds shifting to accommodate his growing size. And hot woman dew gushed out of her body, anointing him with her pleasure.

Eadyth made a slow keening sound of pleasure-pain and wrapped her long legs around his waist.

He drove her with long, excruciatingly slow strokes to the point of madness—his and hers, both—then stopped, and started all over again. He knelt, still impaling her, and arched her body upward so her breasts met his thirsty mouth. As he suckled, then plucked gently with his teeth on the aching buds, she convulsed around him with violent shivers. But he would not let himself go.

He filled her. He consumed her. He wanted all she had to give and then more.

He was beside her, over her, under her, around her—touching, kissing, pressing. He could not tell where her slick body ended and his began. Her flailing, keening body called to a primitive side of his soul.

“Let it happen,” she pleaded incoherently.

Desire roared in his ears like wild wind on a stormy sea.

He raised himself on straightened arms and arched his shoulders back. “Look at me, Eadyth,” he demanded in a thickened voice. When she raised her eyelids only slightly, gazing up at him dreamily, he ordered, “Nay, open your eyes.
Really
look at me.”

When he had her full attention, Eirik pulled himself almost completely outside her body. “I love you, Eadyth. Do you hear me? I…love…you.”

Her eyes grew wide, misting with tears, and then she smiled. A beautiful, soft, heart-stopping smile, like a caress. “I love you, too. Oh, Eirik, I love you, too. Always remember that.”

He gave himself freely to his passion then, pummeling her willing, spasming body with harder and shorter strokes until he embedded himself in the heart of her and filled her with his seed. He cried out once again, “I love you, Eadyth,” before he fell heavily on her.

An amazing sense of completeness enveloped him as he slowly came to his senses, rolling to his side and taking Eadyth with him. This wonderful thing that had just happened to
them was so much more than a physical act. He tried to find the words to tell Eadyth of his feelings as he stroked her smooth shoulder, her silky hair. But then he noticed that Eadyth was weeping silently, profusely.

He leaned up on one elbow to look at his wife, his
beloved
wife. “So this is how you react to my first words of love to you, Eadyth?” he teased, oddly hurt by her tears.

She tried to smile, and failed. Caressing his cheek, she murmured, “Your love means everything in the world to me, Eirik. Know that, always.”

Always?
The word had an ominous ring to Eirik’s ears. He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her more closely. Damn his bleary eyes! He squinted and drew back slightly to see better. Dark shadows marked the undersides of her eyes and tension bracketed her tight lips. Had she looked like this when he arrived? Or had his lovemaking caused her dismay? Or worse yet, his words of love?

“Tell me what troubles you, Eadyth,” he demanded, sitting up. “How have I displeased you?”

“Oh, nay, ’tis not you,” Eadyth reassured him, then shifted her eyes away guiltily, as if to hide some secret. Even with his poor sight, he could see that she seemed to be gathering her senses. She told him about Godric being missing and how she had been lost in the woods. But she deliberately looked away when he questioned her icily about having disobeyed his orders and leaving the keep and about exactly what section of the forest she had been lost in.

“We will find Godric,” he promised her and saw that her eyes darted nervously. He took her trembling hands in his and asked, “Is that all, Eadyth?”

She nodded, but her eyes had a faraway, unreachable cast.

“And you have had no more encounters with Steven?” he asked, lying back down beside her, tracing a fingertip lazily down her arm, then kissing the inside of her wrist.

She shivered, whether from his touch or the question, he could not tell. Then she shook her head. Eirik peered closer and saw that her face had flushed.

“Why would you ask about Steven?” she asked tentatively, and clenched her fists tightly at her sides.

Eirik shrugged, a dull ache of foreboding creeping over the back of his neck. “No reason. You just seem jittery and…frightened.”

He felt her pulse jump in her wrist. Looking at her closely, he studied every telling reaction. “And that is all?”

She hesitated. “Yea.”

And Eirik knew his wife was lying through her teeth. The woman to whom he had just pledged his undying love was keeping secrets again. A raw and primitive grief overwhelmed him.

Women and lies, the ageless combination! Bloody Hell! Would he never learn?

“They are both hiding something,” Wilfrid told Eirik just past dawn the next morning as they broke their fast, alone in the great hall. He thumped his goblet down angrily, spilling some watered ale on the table. “Britta and your lady wife had their heads together all of yesterday. Whenever I asked Britta what it was about, she nigh trembled out of her skin.”

“Eadyth is the same,” Eirik said miserably. In his fury last night, he had been unable to bear the thought of making love to his wife again. She had lost her appeal after he realized she was involved in some new deceit, especially when she stubbornly refused to tell him the truth. He would not even share her bed, despite her tearful protests. Instead, he had laid his head on one of the hall pallets. But he had not slept.

“Mayhap they are just worried about Godric,” Wilfrid offered unconvincingly.

“We all are, but I know there is more. God’s Bones, did you hear the lame excuse Eadyth gave for being gone from the keep while I was away? I never heard so much stuttering and stammering and outright lying in all my life.”

“So you do not believe she was lost in the forest?”

Eirik made a snorting sound of disbelief. “I am furious that Eadyth left the keep against my orders. The woman’s willfulness staggers the senses. But, even worse, there are no forests close to the keep and none so thick that a person could not soon find a way out.”

“Eirik, I know you are angry, but there must be an explanation.”

“There is no excuse for lying.
None.
Eadyth knows how important honesty is to me, and still she deliberately deceives me,
again
.”

Wilfrid sat up straighter. “I just thought of something else. The Lady Eadyth has been behaving strangely in other ways since her return. She has been buzzing about the keep in a most frantic fashion—”

“She always buzzes,” Eirik said, “or nags, or orders, or ‘manages.’”

Wilfrid waved his hand dismissively. “Nay, I mean that she was making odd lists for one and all. A calendar of chores for each and every Ravenshire servant to complete for the next year. A list of repairs needed in the keep and the cotters’ huts. Items to be ordered from Jorvik. Instructions on how to care for her bees and her bee products. ’Tis almost as if…” Wilfrid’s eyes widened with shock.

“What?”

“’Tis almost like a dying person putting his affairs in order,” Wilfrid said.

Eirik laughed mirthlessly. “Eadyth is as healthy as a mule. A mean, stubborn, braying mule.”
With the morals of a snake.
He considered Wilfrid’s words, nonetheless, as he stroked his upper lip, deep in thought. “I am sure there is some connection here betwixt her and Britta conspiring, Godric’s absence, her list making, and…I hate to say this…Steven of Gravely. You can be sure I will get to the bottom of this puzzle, but I will never,
never
, trust the woman again.”

Wilfrid nodded gravely.

“See what you can find out.”

Eirik was about to go up to his bedchamber and confront Eadyth once again when Wilfrid signaled him to come over to the door leading to the bailey.

“Bloody Hell!” Eirik exclaimed as he saw Jeremy, Eadyth’s stoneworker from Hawks’ Lair, driving an overloaded wagon through the gate. He and Wilfrid descended the stone steps and walked up to the building where the cart had stopped. There were enough woven bee hives, pottery containers for honey, straining cloths, candle molds and kitchen supplies to last Ravenshire for a year. “What in the name of all the saints is this?” Eirik demanded of the startled servant.

Jeremy shrugged, backing away from Eirik’s stormy countenance. “My lady sent me to Jorvik yestermorn with a long list.”

“A list!” Eirik and Wilfrid both said, giving each other speaking looks.

“And you drove all through the night to get here just past dawn? What prompted your haste?”

Jeremy shook his head uncertainly. “My lady said there was urgency.”

“For honey pots?”

“My lord,” Jeremy said impatiently. “I do what my lady orders. ’Tis not fer me to question.”

Eirik told Jeremy to unload the cart, but not before the servant handed him a large, linen-wrapped parcel.

“What is this?” Eirik snapped.

“More fabric fer beekeeping veils. Wouldst you give it to the mistress? And tell her that her agent sez this be the last of it he could find in all of Jorvik. And he is sore angry with her fer demandin’—”

Eirik turned away rudely from the servant in mid-sentence, too angry to be polite. He headed toward the keep. Her agent was not the only one “sore angry” with Eadyth. He intended to confront his lady wife once again and get some answers this time.

“Here comes trouble,” Abdul squawked when Eirik en
tered the bedchamber. In no mood for shrewish carping, whether from a parrot or his wife, Eirik threw a mantle over the cage. But the damn bird got the last word in, muttering, “Loathsome lout! Awk!”

Eirik saw that Eadyth was still asleep, though she tossed restlessly. No doubt troubled by her latest deceits, Eirik thought. He pulled a chair closer to the bed and slouched down with outstretched legs crossed at the ankles, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth.

He could not see her very well in the dim light, just the outlines and shadowy curves of her nude body barely covered by the bed linens. For once, he was not tempted—not by the exceedingly long legs, or the curve of her breasts, not even by the enticing mole above her lips. All he saw when he looked at his wife was deceit.

How will I ever be able to live with a woman who lies as often as she breathes? In truth, can I live with her at all now?

“Eirik?” Eadyth said tentatively as she opened her eyes sleepily and sat up in the bed. Drawing the sheet up over her breasts, she tossed her mane of silver hair over her shoulders. “You never came back to bed,” she rebuked him in a trembling voice.

He said nothing, just stared at her, trying to understand her devious mind.

“Eirik, come to bed. Please.”

“I will never lie with you again, Eadyth,” he said, marveling that he could speak so calmly in spite of his fury.

She gasped and made a small whimpering sound.

“Unless you tell me the truth,” he continued in a steely voice.
And mayhap not even then
, he added to himself.

She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth in misery, but would not speak. In fact, she bit her bottom lip as if to prevent the words from spilling out.

His desolate spirits sank even lower.

When she finally opened her eyes, he saw that they were filled with tears, pleading. He was not moved.

“I love you,” she said in a small voice.

He stood and stared at her in icy contempt. “I do not care.”
God help me, I wish that were so.
He threw the package of fabric Jeremy had given him on the bed. “Here. This just arrived for you.”

Eadyth gazed at the linen parcel in horror and shoved it away from her. It fell down to the rushes. Then she began to keen loudly, “Oh, nay, please, do not let it be so. Oh, God, ’tis only the second day. Oh, God—”

“Bloody Hell, Eadyth, what ails you? ’Tis just the fabric you ordered from Jorvik. Jeremy brought it.” He looked down at her with puzzlement. “What did you think it was—a shroud?”

Her violet eyes, misted with tears, blinked in confusion. “Fabric?” When she finally understood, Eadyth put her hand over her heart as if to still its wild beating. Then she pressed her lips together tightly and defiantly refused to answer his question.

Crushed by the defeat of Eadyth’s silence, Eirik stalked over to the door and slammed it loudly behind him. Sigurd and Tykir were waiting for him in the hall.

“Good news finally, Eirik,” Tykir informed him. “Earl Orm sent a message. We now know Gravely’s hiding place in Northumbria…for a certainty. ’Tis a small manor about two hours from here, near Lord Cyril’s estates.”

Eirik closed his eyes and gave silent thanks that he might catch the evil Gravely at last. Nothing else in his life was going right. At least he would get this satisfaction.

“With any luck, we will find Godric at the same time,” Sigurd said. They all nodded in agreement.

Wilfrid rushed up to Eirik then. “My lord, come at once. You will not believe what I have found.”

“I have no time—”

“Believe me, Eirik, you have time for this.”

Eirik ordered Tykir and Sigurd to ready their horses. “I will join you shortly.” Then he followed after his seneschal, grumbling about the wasted time. They went through the kitchen and out to the courtyard, ignoring the working ser
vants who stared at them with curiosity. When they got to Eadyth’s crude shed for making mead, Wilfrid opened the door with a flourish.

Eirik’s mouth gaped open with surprise.

A pile of bloody bones lay on the floor in the center next to the still. All kinds of bones—cow legs, cattle shoulder bones, the hipbone of a sheep, what appeared to be a pig’s skull, eyeballs…
eyeballs!
They were piled almost waist high and beginning to emit a rank odor.

“What is the meaning of all this?” Eirik exclaimed. “I must be off with Sigurd and Tykir to capture Gravely. Why do you waste my time with animal remains? And why are they out here and not in the midden?” He wrinkled his nose with distaste.

“’Tis a clue,” Wilfrid announced, grinning with self-satisfaction.

“Have you lost your senses like everyone else in this keep? What kind of clue?”

“A clue to Lady Eadyth and Britta’s plot.”

Eirik put his hands on his hips and glared at his seneschal, tapping his foot testily.

“Do you not see? They have been hiding the bones in here for some devious purpose. Methinks it has something to do with Godric.”

“Methinks you were knocked on the head this morn. Methinks ’tis more likely these are the secret ingredients in Eadyth’s mead.”

Wilfrid’s eyes widened with wonder. “Do you really think so?”

“Nay, you lackwit, I do not think so. Get Britta and bring her here at once. I have had more than enough of all this nonsense. I will have answers and I will have them
now
.”

A short time later, a clearly frightened Britta stood before them in the shed. Her red hair stood out in disarray, and her apron hung askew, as if she had hurried, or was flustered.

“I will give you an opportunity to answer my questions, Britta,” Eirik said tautly. “One lie…one lie only…and
you will be banished from Ravenshire. And do not be thinking your mistress will help you, because she may very well be traveling the road with you.”

Britta looked toward Wilfrid for help, but his arms were crossed over his chest. He scowled down at her, refusing to come to her aid. “Tell the truth, Britta,” Wilfrid said stonily, “for if you are banished, I will not be able to come with you, or after you.”

Her eyes darted forlornly around the shed, like a trapped rabbit.

“Why have you and Eadyth been collecting these bones?” Eirik asked, ripping the words out impatiently.

The maid inhaled deeply for courage, then exhaled loudly with resignation. “So she and John can die,” Britta confessed in a voice barely above a whisper.

Eirik’s mouth dropped open, and Wilfrid’s eyes almost popped from his head.

“Die? Die?” Eirik grabbed Britta by the forearms and shook her. “Stop blathering your foolish words. Why are these bones here?”

“I told you,” Britta said through chattering teeth. “The mistress needs to pretend that she and John have been killed by wild wolves, and these bones were going to be the evidence. Oh, Blessed Mary, now Godric will die. And you, too, Lord Eirik.” She threw herself into the arms of a stunned Wilfrid, wailing loudly about poisons and drownings and human heads.

When Britta settled down a bit, they all sat on a nearby bench. Eirik forced Britta to disclose everything. After her lengthy, incredible story, Eirik stood abruptly, rigid with rage. “She thought to fool me with cow bones and pig eyeballs?” he asked incredulously. “Does she think my vision is that poor, my brain that dull?”

“Oh, nay, master, we were going to mangle them a bit. Once we crushed the bones a few times with a hammer, you would not be able to tell…” Her words trailed off when she
heard his quick intake of breath. He gave her a sidelong look of utter disbelief.

“Britta, how could you?” Wilfrid sputtered out. “I trusted you. I asked you to be my wife. How could you?”

She began to wail again.

“And where was she going?” Eirik asked icily, spacing his words evenly.

“Normandy.”

Eirik clenched his jaw.

“My lady’s missive to her agent—the one with her orders for supplies—also had instructions for booking passage for her and John.”

“And how did she intend to live?”

“Bees,” Britta offered weakly. “She was taking a small hive with her to start a new colony.”

Eirik rolled his eyes heavenward. “One last thing. Where is the poison Steven gave her to use on me?”

Britta looked uncertain. “’Twas hidden above the door jamb in your bedchamber, out of the children’s reach, but the mistress may have thrown it away by now. Oh, master, you never thought that she would actually use it on you, did you?”

“Nay. I am thinking of using it on her, though.” He turned to Wilfrid and said, “I expect you to punish Britta for her part in this foolhardy plot. As I will handle my own faithless lady.”

Wilfrid nodded, and Eirik turned, heading back toward the keep and his willful, deceitful, lackbrain wife. At that moment, he could have killed her without any compunction whatsoever.

Eadyth was not the only one with a talent for making lists. He began to make a list in his mind of all the ways he could torture her before doing the final deed. Mayhap he would start by rubbing her face in the bloody animal parts. Or make her swallow a pig eye or two.

Luckily, Eadyth was hidden behind a screen in his bedchamber when Eirik entered. He reached above the door jamb
and retrieved the vial of poison. Then he locked the door behind him. Quickly, he dumped the vial’s contents into a chamber pot, then rinsed it out and filled it with water.

He noticed the still-wrapped linen parcel on the floor and felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for Eadyth when he realized that she must have thought it was Godric’s head. But her pain was naught when weighed against the kind of pain he would have felt on learning of her and John’s deaths.
How could she?