Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (25 page)

“These walls have been painted white recently,” he said.

“That shows intent and purity of purpose.”

“And the white powder on the floor?” He leaned down and, before she could stop him, wetted his finger and tasted the powder. “Salt.”

“A circle of salt,” Elfrida agreed. She had noticed the scattering of salt at once. The circle had been swept away but carelessly, man fashion.

“Not for my meat, then, but for what?”

“To protect or to contain. The circle may have been for the magic worker to stand within, safe, or to hold a demon.”

“Splendor in Christendom,” she saw Magnus mouth, and her hand was pulled as he made the sign of the cross. He glanced at her, and his mouth went grim. “What else?”

She knelt and plucked a seed from the floor. Again it was a trace, a token that the wizard—she was sure whoever worked here was a man—was up to no good. “Seeds of the parsley plant. Do you know what they say of the parsley seed? It goes back and forth to hell seven times before it sprouts. And here”—she leaned forward and swept up a tiny, gray-green, dry frond—“is wormwood, to protect against demons.”

“The fellow wants things both ways,” said Magnus. “But is it our Forest Grendel?”

“It must be, surely.” Elfrida rose to her feet, excitement and dread both bubbling within her. “We have the laundress whimpering downstairs with a set of long-limbed clothes. We have spices. We have a tower and a blue door and mistletoe.” She frowned. “I thought to see mistletoe within.”

“Ah.” Magnus coughed, and his mangled features melded into a look Elfrida realized was embarrassment. “There was a heap of green stuff at the top of the ladder. I put my hand in it by accident and tossed it away into that corner.”

She grinned. “One for you.”

She focused on the darkest part of the chamber, where part of the ceiling dipped down and there were still many shadows that the lantern could not dispel. The northern end, she admitted.
The North, site of the
devil
. As she watched the bare wall, she noticed a thin, black strip coiled close into the corner like a sleeping adder.

“Let me.” Magnus stretched out with his right arm but stopped when he heard her hiss of breath. “Surely it can do me no more damage than I have already?”

“I do not know.” Elfrida was ashamed to admit it but felt compelled to do so. “The...the arrangement of whatever is under there could be important.”

He said nothing, and she wondered if he was disappointed in her for stopping him, then she was afraid in case he was.

Though I should not be fretting over such things. Consider Christina!

“We could take a part each,” Magnus suggested.

Relief gushed through her. He
had
listened to her, he
had
heeded her. “That would be best.”

Carefully, they edged to the wall and nipped a piece of the shining, black cloth between them.

“This is a fine silk.” Magnus confirmed what she suspected, although she had never seen or handled the cloth before. It was as dark as
midnight
and light and thin as a shadow, though as she lifted it away from the wall, it whispered, as if speaking to its master.

She stared at the objects now revealed, all ranged against the northern wall, and knew the worst. Within a chalice of polished copper, marked by a strange script, were the herbs of magic—vervain, periwinkle, sage, mint. Within a small dark mirror she saw her own distorted reflection. Upon a small gold platter was a tiny pile of nail parings and strands of hair. Sickened, she almost snatched the golden strands from the platter then compelled herself to touch nothing.

“The lettering is Greek.” Magnus leaned in so far she thought he would crash against the wall. “I fear my Greek is not good, and I have forgotten most of what I learned in Outremer. I think it means something like the dark one, or the beautiful dark one.”

Elfrida had seen enough but knew she must still keep searching. There was a narrow strip of parchment beside the gold platter. She unrolled it, the dry-tomb taste of horror choking her mouth and lungs as she saw the list of names. This script was Latin, which she could read a little.

“Those are Arabic numbers.” Magnus, still gripping his end of the black silk, ignored the names and pointed to a squiggle on the parchment. “That is the letter two and one, twenty-one.”

“With the sign for the month of December beside it.” Elfrida rolled up the parchment and replaced it on the floor before turning her full attention to the final object on the floor by the wall. It was a clay figure, carefully fashioned in the shape of a man but with three heads. Each head wore a “crown” of mistletoe berries. Scratched onto the chest of the figure were the Arabic numerals for twenty-one and the astrological sign of the archer Sagittarius.

Moving with great care and deliberation so she would not give way to the rising panic inside her own breast, Elfrida pooled her end of the black cloth over the items. Ever quick, Magnus did the same at the opposite side. He knew when to keep silent, too, as Elfrida stalked into the middle of the chamber and this time found a fragment of burnt ashes upon the floor. She moved to the left and found another fragment, then another, making the shape of a triangle.

Now she was sure, too sure. She swallowed, smothering the rising scream in her throat. Digging her fingernails into her palms, her hands felt clammy, and her gut crawled.

“
We should take the lantern.
”
She was glad her voice sounded steady.
“
Leave all as we found it. Please do not ask why.”

“No.” Magnus strolled across to the wall sconce and lifted down the lantern. “I will light you down.”

She was too tense to protest that she should leave the chamber last and ensure no sign of them remained. Stepping over another small heap of ash, she hastened down the ladder. She started as Magnus blew out the lantern and rapidly chanted the prayer of Saint Patrick against demons until he appeared in the second room.

“Thank Christ and all the saints.” Wrung out, she threw herself against his broad chest and flung her arms about him.

“What is amiss? You near weeping and the maid below sobbing and rattling the door—if any came now they would think I beat you both.” He combed her hair with his fingers and rocked her in his arms. “Tell me now,” he said. “Tell me the worst.”

Chapter 18

“The Forest Grendel uses this tower for magic.” Elfrida leaned against the southern wall of the second chamber, a room filled with stacked logs and braziers, wicker hurdles, a broken horse harness, and barrels of apples. An odd room for a mystical place, Magnus thought. He took a reddened, wizened apple from the barrel closest to him and bit in.

It was sour, and he tossed it back into the barrel.

“Do not leave any piece you have touched,” Elfrida said wearily. Too cast down and depleted to stand, she slid down the wall onto her heels, looking as if she longed to clasp her arms around her knees and rock there.

“Why not?” Magnus asked, to stop her doing just that.

“He could use it against you.”

He remembered the nail clippings and worse, much worse, Elfrida’s dress that he had carelessly flung away to Gregory Denzil. Retrieving the apple from the barrel, he finally swallowed the mouth-crinkling chunk. It was sour enough to make his eyes water, but he imagined it as the Grendel’s head and got it down.

“It is worse than I feared.” Elfrida frowned as the woman in the room below them moaned softly and rattled the door again, like a wandering ghost.

“You are a good witch, are you not? Could he not be the same?”

His ploy to play advocate for the devil worked. She jerked up her head so hard she hit the back wall. “Not so! He is nothing like me! This creature is evil. He wishes to draw demons, seduce them, summon them, and he means to use my sister to do it! That is why he stole away brides!”

Magnus realized he must have looked puzzled, for she started to say more, in her own dialect, then stopped, shuddering. He sat down beside her and pulled her onto his lap.

He knew they should make haste away. He knew they should still be looking for the Grendel’s other towers, that he should bribe or threaten the laundress into confessing all she knew, by sign language if need be. But Elfrida had the kind of dazed shock freezing her limbs that he had seen on warriors after the bloodiest of battles, and he did not want her to suffer.

His single urgent thought was to console. He feathered his hand over her shivering back while his right arm clasped her snugly. He kissed her ears and forehead, her flawless nose, her adorable freckles. Her lips caught his, and the summer heat between them made the scent of the stored apples wholesome. She whispered then said in the old tongue, “I am safe again.”

“Always, my heart,” he said, softly touching her breast and feeling her heart thud into his hand. “We are a haven for each other,” he said in his own tongue, knowing she would understand the meaning, if not the words.

She lowered her head and sighed. “Sir.”

“Hush.” She was the witch, but he knew this magic better, understood what she needed, and guessed it would heal them. He bore her to the floor and deftly eased down her braies. She was ready for him, embracing, and he slid into her, taking her slowly, tenderly to each rise. When she was golden again, and glowing, he flowed into her, their union a time of summer in winter.

Afterward she was as loose-limbed as an Eastern dancer and also more herself. “Was that wise?” she asked as he helped her to tie her braies.

“Never fret.” He slapped her rump for the pleasure of it and hauled her again onto his knees.

“Our time—”

“We have not lingered for so long, nor will we. Why brides? Because they are virgin?”

“Yes, and we should be leaving. It will be dark soon.”

Magnus kissed her and gave her a tiny push. “Go to it, then, since you must.”

She scrambled to her feet. “What do we do with Hedda?”

“Give her our flasks and bits of food and leave her here. She will not starve for food or cold, not in three days. And that is the length of time we have, is it not? Three days until the twenty-first of this month? Within a time of three?” He reminded Elfrida of the spell she had created and the promise she had made within her own home.

She stared at him, blushing. For an instant he thought it was because she was glad he had remembered her magic, or she was perhaps still shy of him and their joining, but then another lodged in his mind, a bitter, dark reason.

“You feared I might do away with her. Why? Because she would be in our way? Because she is no gentlewoman?”

Her eyes glanced away from his, and his indignation hardened into anger.
“
You asked me without much hope, in a rush, because you dreaded my answer. If I had chosen differently, what would have followed? Would you have trusted me again?
”
Revolted, he turned and smashed his fist into the wall.
“
Do you trust me now? Was this some kind of test?
”

“
I had to ask,
”
Elfrida panted.
“
She is ours for the moment. And you would not harm a lady.
”

“Nor any woman!”

“Yes.” She looked directly at him. “Believe me, I know that now.”

Yet you still asked
. As a warrior, Magnus could understand the question. As her lover, it repelled him. Unable to look at her, he turned toward the final ladder.