Snow in July (35 page)

HER LEGS felt leaden, and she thought her lungs would burst. Without thinking, for her impulse was to put as much distance between her and Alain as possible, her steps had taken her toward King Harold’s cottage. As she entered the invalids’ village, she stopped, doubled over with hands to knees, to catch her breath.

“Lady Kendra, most excellently well met.” Brother Oswald’s voice crackled with relief. She rose, still winded, to regard him. Worry deepened the creases of his face and not, she suspected, because of her own frail health. “He is dying and wishes to see you.”

Brother Oswald’s first announcement came as no shock. King Harold had been dying, by agonizing inches, for almost a year. Kendra had just prolonged the inevitable, and everyone privy to his condition knew it.

However, that the king wished to see her, a lowly thane’s daughter, she had trouble believing.

Without waiting for her reply, the monk strode toward the cottage. Kendra strove to keep up as best she could. She felt as if she were wading hip deep in muck.

She wondered if she might be dying too.

It had happened to her mother, who probably had endured far less strain than Ulfric had forced upon Kendra.

But the thought of dying didn’t frighten her as much as it once might have. By passing from the earthly realm into the eternal one, she could escape the many men who would try to use her to achieve their own ends.

Alain included.

The more she pondered the idea, the more earnestly she anticipated being reunited with those who loved her for who she was, not for what she could do for them.

She reached the cottage door, which Brother Oswald was holding open, drumming his fingers on the frame. Smiling apologetically, she stepped past him into the gloom.

The aromas of mint and lavender scented the air, emanating from an iron pan discharging smoke beside the hearth. She glanced toward the bed where the king lay, wheezing, attended by Ethel and Brother Eric. If Ethel had thought the scents would aid the king’s breathing, the pan needed to be placed closer to him to do any good. Kendra snatched a small cloth from the table, wound it around the pan’s handle before grabbing it, and walked it over.

Brother Eric looked up and, as he had done so often before, surrendered his seat to Kendra and left the cottage to resume his post outside the door. She set the smoking pan on the floor near the headboard and seated herself.

But when she took the king’s limp, cool hand into her own, she felt not even the most tenuous of connections. She glanced toward Ethel and shook her head. “His body still lives, but I—it is beyond my power to reach him.”

She couldn’t bear to voice the fear that if she could not reach the king’s mind, she had no hope of coaxing him back to the realm of the living.

Ethel rose and walked around to Kendra’s side of the bed, holding a small pouch. She disengaged Kendra’s right hand from the king’s, crumbled a few petals into Kendra’s palm, spat, and pressed the mixture into a paste. With that hand Kendra grasped the king’s and closed her eyes.

Ah, Lady Kendra, you have come.

Of course, Your Majesty. How could I fail to obey your summons?

No. No more ‘Your Majesty’ nonsense for me. There is but one Majesty where I am going, and He tolerates no pretenders.

She felt her lips bend into a slight smile.
If it pleases Your—if it pleases you, sir, I shall accompany you.

A wave of the king’s surprise rippled through her.
Why? Your entire life lies before you. A good life, I should think.

This? Healing you, and others? This is no life. It is killing me.
She never would have spoken the words aloud. But inside the raw reality of their mingled thoughts, she never could have held them back.

I know, dear lady. You may try to mask it, shrug it off as nothing, but I know. I am grateful for what you have done for me, but I must release you from this duty.

My lord, I—
She squeezed his hand. Into her hesitation seeped memories of Alain and the tender moments they had shared. But the shock of his lies crashed upon her like breakers against the cliffs. If he had thought nothing of deceiving her by posing as someone else, what other deceptions would she suffer at his hands?

How else could he shatter her heart?

Did he even care about what he’d done?

I can feel your anguish. Someone you love very much has done this to you.

Aye, my lord
, she admitted, unable to say less and unwilling to say more.

Kendra, dying is not—

Agony gripped her like a vise. She willed past the pain to try to locate it. Her heart or King Harold’s was starting to falter. Considering this weird linkage they shared, probably both.

Dying might not be the best option for her in his opinion, but it would give her the release she craved.

If she could ever make it past this excruciating pain.

Chapter 21

U
LFRIC ENJOYED CANINE form more than any human shape for the nonhuman benefits it afforded him. Tracking, for instance. While the dense fog might have confounded a man, to his canine senses Kendra’s trail appeared as clearly as if it had been painted on the ground and torchlit. And on four nimble legs, he traversed the distance much faster than he could have ever managed on two.

Surprise was another benefit. Without breaking stride, he gathered his legs underneath his lean, muscular body and leapt atop Brother Eric before the monk could cry out. He sank strong jaws into vulnerable flesh, executed a quick jerk of his canine head, and it was done.

He butted his head against the dying man’s and extracted the last of the monk’s life force. The effort yielded only a small spark, not enough for a complete transformation.

No matter. The weak-minded always saw what they most desired to see.

Thankful for the fog and drizzle that had penned the timid indoors, Ulfric willed his body back into a human form that bore a passing resemblance to the dead monk. He stripped off the robe, sucked as much blood as he could from its neckline, and donned the garment. He dragged the naked corpse into the narrow, windowless passage between the cottages, snugged the robe’s hood around his face and, hoping for gloom to complete his disguise, calmly entered the cottage.

NOIR DID not disappoint Alain. The fog parted to reveal a cluster of cottages, and the hound raced up to one of them.

But rather than approaching the door, he darted, barking, between two buildings.

Alain bolted after the dog, praying for Kendra’s safety.

What he saw made him pull up short.

Noir was nosing about the naked body of a man, lying facedown, his head twisted at a sickening angle. A puddle of blood had collected beneath his neck. Alain did not have to roll over the victim to know how he’d met his end.

Battle rage flooding his veins, Alain drew his sword and stalked toward the cottage’s door.

Ulfric had much to atone for.

“BROTHER ERIC,” Ethel said as she scurried over to the disguised Ulfric. “The king—Lady Kendra—” Wringing her hands, she looked up at him hopefully. “Please, you must help them.”

Resisting the urge to slap some sense into the old woman, Ulfric hurried over to the bed, where Harold sprawled on his back, his limbs and body twitching violently. Kendra, who must have been seated beside him, to judge by the chair’s placement, lay slumped across his chest, her body convulsing to the same rhythm as Harold’s.

Brother Oswald was attempting to separate them, but each time he took hold of Kendra’s shoulders, she shuddered out of his grasp.

Ulfric stepped closer and disentangled Kendra’s fingers from Harold’s. In midtwitch she uttered a loud moan and jerked back into Ulfric’s arms, head drooping to one side.

Kendra represented the least of Ulfric’s concerns. He lowered her to the floor beside the bed and moved closer to the king, laying a hand on Harold’s unshaven, clammy cheek. As always, he reveled in the surge of power as the last of Harold’s energy flowed into him.

“What are you doing, Brother Eric?” Suspicion clouded Oswald’s tone.

Ulfric removed his hand from Harold’s lifeless face and pressed it flat against his own chest for a few moments, over his heart. Feeling the transformation become complete, he turned, threw back his hood, and smiled at the astounded monk in a way Ulfric knew was uniquely Harold’s.

He shouldered past Ethel, who lost her balance and fell to the floor, hitting her head with a dull thud. As Ulfric approached Oswald, the monk tried to raise his staff in defense. Empowered by the strength of the hound and dead men, Ulfric wrested the staff from the monk’s grip and snapped it in two as if it were a child’s toy. Oswald’s neck followed.

Glancing over his shoulder, he felt a stab of pity for Kendra. It wouldn’t do for his bride—his queen—to wake up lying on the floor. He shoved the dead king aside, scooped her up, and laid her on the bed. Her face, though creased with sadness, looked exquisite, and Ulfric bent down to take that which she had yet to willingly give him: a kiss full on her moist, pliant lips.

God, it was great to be king.

“Get away from her, you animal!”

Ulfric laughed. Casually, he straightened and faced his foe. The Norman nuisance calling himself Sir Robert stood in the open doorway, sword leveled. Tendrils of fog twined around the Norman’s mail-clad legs like a feline spirit. Blood streaked his sword, and his rent surcoat sported far more red than any other color, though how much blood had come from the knight, Ulfric couldn’t tell without the benefit of his canine senses.

Outside the cottage, the hound Ulfric had used to guard the Glastonbury Tor treasure hoard was savaging one of Ulfric’s men.

So be it; Ulfric’s enhanced state rendered the need for reinforcements unnecessary. Besides, he wanted nothing more than to split the Norman from crotch to throat.

“Is that the best insult you can muster?” Crossing his arms, he grinned as his voice modulated to match Harold’s. “Or do you believe God will send you to hell if you curse me any worse?”

Sir Robert bared his teeth in what looked like more grimace than grin, advanced into the room, and slammed the door. “I could never presume to top the curses God has already heaped upon you for your sorcerous abominations.” He lifted his sword into a stance of wary readiness. “I prefer to let this blade talk for me, Ulfric.”