Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (27 page)

Abruptly, as if reminded, he sobered down and glanced about the small clearing where they had landed.
“
There is Hedda
’
s track. We can join it easily.
”
He held out his hand to raise her up.

She gripped his warm, strong fingers, wishing Christina knew him.
She will
, she thought, making her wish a promise. She half turned, still clasping Magnus’s hand. The tower and its blue door were hidden behind the hill. The mistletoe wood was lost behind a screen of snow-shrouded beeches, limes, and hollies. Here she could speak frankly, she decided.

“I know dark magic through the work of my parents,” she began, wanting Magnus to trust her, despite her knowledge of the blackest arts. “They both trained me. From my father, I learned that to combat the old pagan ways you must first recognize them. My mother taught me curses to help me fight against them. Dark magic is so often secret, occult, unknown to any but the practicing wizard or witch. To defend against it, you must see it, know it, understand it.”

Magnus squeezed her fingers.
“
You speak like someone would who makes war,
”
he said. To her relief, he seemed interested, almost admiring.
“
Combat, defend, attack.
”

“
Perhaps I do.
”
She took a deep breath. “He is planning a great working in dark magic. I am sure of it.”

“Our
Forest
Grendel? Hell take it, but I wish I could remember the man! I can put no face to any tall, thin Denzil from Outremer.”

“Him,” Elfrida agreed, feeling her next words lodge tightly in her throat, half throttling her. Compelled to yet reluctant to speak, to admit the hovering panic, she checked the position of the sun. It was still high, but they must not linger. As Magnus said, even the youthful guards at the castle would grow suspicious if they were away too long.

And at twilight and sunset, wolves may come. I do not know if the Grendel controls the wolves of this forest, and I do not want to find out.

“He means to sacrifice my sister.”

Elfrida tried to stop the rest, but now the harsh, swirling panic was with her and in her, rolling in her belly, forcing more words from her throat. “He is going to kill her. He will drug her and take that copper knife and kill her, slit her throat as a butcher does a pig’s.”

Her eyes blackened, and then Magnus was holding her, supporting her, crooning as he stroked her hair. She fought him, and he took her stinging blows and kicks as if they were flea bites, holding her, reassuring her.

“
We will stop him.
”
She began to understand again what he was saying.
“
We shall stop him dead, Elfrida. He will not win. He will not win.
”

His very sureness soothed her, and her racing heart began to slow.

“Why three days?” Magnus was asking now, forcing her to think.

“You told me the meaning of the Arabic numbers, twenty and one. That is the date in three days’ time.” She remembered the spell she made in her own house, and suddenly understood there was still much to be hopeful for. “But we shall save her before the end of those three days, Magnus! We shall rescue her within a time of three, exactly as my magic foretold!”

“Yes, but why can it not mean twenty-one years or twenty-one weeks? And we are lovers in each other’s arms, so why are talking about numbers and dates?”

“
For the sake of Christina and the others
,” Elfrida explained, and poked him with a finger. “This is important, Magnus. It is winter and the dark time of the year, when the things of darkness hold sway.”

As she spoke she recognized something else, something evil, that “a time of three” would mean a sinister outcome if they did not find Christina. “In three days, on the twenty-first, it will be the shortest day of the year, the midwinter solstice, when the sun and all things of light are weakest.”

“So a dark sacrifice then will have more force.”

“Yes.”

“It cannot be another offering, less fatal? Perhaps a sacrifice of the nail parings and hair that we saw?”

“Those only made the final end more sure.” Elfrida closed her eyes, fought the horror again, then looked at Magnus. His honest, ugly-handsome face, his scars, gave her reason to go on. His quiet courage gave her hope.

“The parchment we found had the names of devils written upon it. The Greek inscription you understood was to the ‘dark beautiful one,’ surely another title of Lucifer. The clay image had three heads, and the devil has three heads. There were burnt ashes on the floor, ashes which made the sign of a pentagram.”

“You cannot know that,” Magnus said quietly.

“What else could it be? A circle of salt to protect the wizard, a pentagram in ash to call a demon. This man whom you cannot remember, Magnus, this Denzil who has an astrolabe, who understands the signs and symbols of the heavens, he is a necromancer! He is summoning devils, and to do that he must offer payment—hair and nails in one rite and blood in other rites, his own blood first, to show his intent.”

“And then?” Magnus demanded harshly. His arms tightened about her so much that she lost a breath, but again she was glad of his strength.

“In the final rite he will use the blood of innocents, the blood of brides, the blood of virgins.”

Magnus’s eyes glittered. “There we have him! Is he not missing a bride? One dark, one fair, one brown, but where is his redhead?” He kissed her smartly and let her down, stalking toward Hedda’s tracks. “That is the reason Gregory Denzil is so keen to have
you
, Elfrida. He wants to trade you with his kinsman!”

“But I am no maiden now,” Elfrida stammered, hastening after him.

“Gregory Denzil does not care, and I doubt if our Forest Grendel has told him his full intent!” Magnus tossed over his shoulder. “We must get back, get my men, ride out tonight and return to the blue-door tower.” He stopped and whipped round, glowering. “That is where the Forest Grendel will come? You are sure?”

Elfrida caught up with him. “As certain as I can be. He needs a secret place for the work, and the tower is that. His sacred robe is there,” she added, thinking of the long, white gown she had discovered in the second chamber.

“His other trash, too,” Magnus reminded her, “the spices, the names, the chalice, and copper knife. Why copper? That keeps no edge.”

A chill crackled over Elfrida’s skin as she, a white witch, was forced to admit what she knew of darker arts. “No necromancer or evil wizard would dare use an iron blade in such rites. Iron is for Christ.”

“True enough.” Magnus patted his dagger, his whole body tense with anticipation. Suddenly afraid of that lusty battle prowess, Elfrida tugged on his cloak before he could whirl away from her again.

“Sir Magnus!”
What if he did not heed her warning this time, either
?
“Please! We must not
storm
this tower.”

To her relief, the bright battle gleam in his face faded as he looked at her. “I understand.” He sighed and scowled. “Never fret, my lass, I know I was wrong the first time we came to the tower. I will not batter my way in this second time, not with hostages at risk.” He gripped her chin gently. “You can be our captain.”

He said it and meant it but saw her stiffen and her eyes widen as if suddenly possessed. Before he could react, she turned and began hurrying back the way they had come, fitting her running feet exactly into the footprints left by the laundress. Magnus felt the hairs rise on his neck and back, and for an instant he did not know what to do.

“Elfrida!” He was not even sure if her own name would reach her.

She heard him and turned. “I need to go back,” she panted. “You are right—in this I
am
your captain. I have my own craft to match against this evil, and I can destroy his preparations.”

Not caring what tracks he left in the snow, he lunged forward and gathered her close. She was limber in his arms and soft, but she was also breathless, her eyes overbright, while her heart was as steady as a nursing mother’s. “Elfrida?”

She smiled and brushed a fleck of snow from his beard. “I will be quite safe. Are you and your men not returning tonight? And if I am not with you at the Denzil keep,” she continued, with the devastating logic of a lawyer from
Bologna
, “then Gregory Denzil cannot act against you. If he wants me for his kinsman, he cannot have me if I am not with you. You can say I am lost in the woods.”

“Or run away from me.” Magnus grunted. “That would be more likely.”

She shook her bright head. “Never. Not for all the spices of Outremer.” She leaned against him, drew in a long, deep breath. “But I must go back, Magnus. What if the Forest Grendel comes here early, with Christina?”

“What would you do then?” he asked, dreading her answer.

“My best.” She raised a hand to silence his protest. “I know magic, and you do not.”

That was the crux, Magnus knew. For a selfish instant, he wished she was a woman only of the house, skilled in weaving, cooking, and gardening, sweetly submissive in bed, but she was that and more. She was a house woman and a woman of magic besides. At her core she was as much a warrior as he was, battling with spirits he did not understand and could not hope to best. If he loved her for what she was and as she was, which he did, then the choice here was hers, not his.
If I do not show faith in her now, what chance for us? She wants to save her sister and will do anything. Will you then deny her? But I am the crusader!

And she is the witch. My good witch.

He kissed her softly and swept her high in his arms. “Come then.” He growled, feeling a treacherous tear run down his eye into his beard. “Let me take you back. No”—he frowned a warning—“you have your battle lines that none cross without you fighting them, and I have mine. I do not leave a woman alone in the wildwood, whatever her powers. We go back, you have the key and lock yourself in.” He longed to tell her to hide in the apple room but knew she would not.

Her lips trembled then firmed. “You will not be long.” She spoke as if to cheer both of them. “You and your men, you will take care?”

“We know how to creep and sneak upon a place, just as well as the Denzils.”

He was glad to see her color up and with every step he felt a surge of hope. His redhead was safer here, in this odd wood, than in the rowdy court of the Denzils. That tall, thin creature would not return for three days—why should he? His brides were elsewhere, and they needed tending.

He will want them perfect for a sacrifice.

It was a gruesome thought, and he hid his face from Elfrida, glad she was nuzzling his shoulder as he walked steadily back up the hill.

Chapter 20

Returning in the late afternoon sunlight, Magnus knew at once that their ruse at the Denzil keep had been discovered. Slipping through the narrow postern gate, he sensed it from the very silence of the garden—a watchful quiet.

He had given Elfrida the bits of food and a flask but still had one with him. He swilled a little round his mouth, spilled the rest over his cloak, and began to wail. “Gone! Gone!”

He climbed the garden wall—an easy business with the snow piled deep against it—and swayed on its top, pretending to swig from his empty flask. “She’s gone! Run off!”

Gregory Denzil grabbed his leather cloak before he pitched back headfirst over the wall. He and his foul-breathed second, whose name Magnus had never troubled to learn, hauled him into the grounds of the keep.