Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (44 page)

Witchcraft was part of her life. Magnus had never asked her to relinquish it, nor did he fear her. She knew he had moments of disquiet, especially when she had charmed the laundress, but he was easy now. He trusted her witchcraft.

“What would he say?” she murmured aloud, putting aside her spindle and stirring the bubbling pottage. “That it is my craft, women’s business.”

And what is the women’s work that I aid?

“Childbearing, tending pregnant cows, making sure the stores are sweet and fresh, making clothes, making bread dough, brewing ale, gardening, helping with the harvests.”

All living things, she realized, all fruitful.

Joseph Denzil had told her he was dying. He had sought a bride of frost and snow, not of bountiful summer. He had not seen her as his equal because he had never recognized her magic as such and had not known her when they met face to face. He had plotted to steal life by sacrificing other brides. He was a necromancer, seeking to control demons and spirits. Even the wolfsbane poison had been left as a means of serving death.

“His magic means death,” Elfrida said, staring at the seething peas. She could plant dried peas and they would sprout, for her magic was concerned with life.

She clapped her hands together. “And that is how I must cleanse him forever from our homes and woods, through rituals of life. His magic is not the only way! I called myself a warrior of magic and was pleased when Magnus called me so, but in truth my magic is women’s magic, life magic, magic not bound by numbers or times of three or anything such. There were other ways, more certain ways,
older
ways of defeating Joseph.”

I must plan for that
. As she thought it, she began to smile...

* * * *

Magnus swung down from his horse and knelt at the wayside shrine. He had stopped here weeks ago, without much hope. So much had changed since then. He had changed. The battered little statue of the unknown saint no longer seemed a kindred soul but one he could be kind to. And he had promised the saint an offering when he next traveled this way.

“Greetings, Holy One.” He knelt and brushed the mounds of snow from the beleaguered figure. “I bring you my offering, as promised.”

He laid some gold coins at the foot of the wooden statue. The coins were from his own wagon, which was still safe at Top Yarr, and also from Gregory Denzil’s treasure chest, which
Baldwin
had recovered from the solar of Denzil’s castle.

“My good little witch Elfrida also sends her greetings.” It felt good to say Elfrida’s name, to announce her as his. He had a woman now, and he intended to keep her. He was keen to show her off to others, Peter and Alice to start with, and then more.

He laid a wreath of holly and ivy before the saint. Elfrida would have chosen such, he thought, and the red berries picked up the faded paint on the saint
’
s cloak.

“
Thank you for Elfrida. Thank you for saving her sister. Thank you for freeing the slave women.
”
To those he had given the rest of Denzil
’
s treasure and sent them off with an escort to the nearest convent of nuns that his men could find. The women might not choose to stay at such a place forever, but it would be a respite to begin with.

He placed another row of gold coins on top of the first.
“
Thank you for Elfrida loving me.
”

Each day when he woke, that was his first thought—
she loves me.
Christmas was fast approaching, the time of merrymaking and gifts, but he had already had his present.

Thank the Lord that all my other obligations are finished at last! Now I can plan for myself. Tonight, when I reach Top Yarr again, I shall ask Elfrida to marry me. Will she accept? Do witches have husbands?

“
This witch will,
”
he vowed, adding quickly,
“
Please, Holy One, let her accept me.
”

He laid out a third row of coins then simply tipped the rest of the leather bag over the shrine. Coins, silver, copper, and gold, spilled around the gently smiling figure in a shower of bounty, sparkling in the sunshine and snow.

He left without looking back, keen to be on his way.

* * * *

Elfrida looked up from the pottage when the vast shadow fell across her from the doorway. The sight of Magnus towering there, the sunset bright behind him, outlining his craggy, scarred profile and long, sinewy body, set her heart and breath and thoughts speeding.

“Ah, you are back,” she said, while her inner witch voice scolded her.
Naturally he is back! Say something startling and witty that will remind him how amazing you think him!

“Did you have a good journey, Sir...Magnus?”

She rapped her spoon on the side of the cauldron, wishing she could have done better than that. She had such hopes, such plans. “I have been cooking,” she said, thinking she might at least appeal to his hunger. “’Tis not great knightly fare, but it is wholesome.”

“So you are back to ‘sir’ again, eh? I shall have to change that.”

Her heartbeat sped up even faster as he strode across to her, growling a hasty apology for dropping clumps of snow on her newly swept floor. “It does not matter,” she managed to begin, before he scooped her into his arms.

“Never fret over pottage, Elfrida, ’tis you I wish to have.”

Then he was kissing her lips and throat and ears, murmuring against her hair. “Better than a drink of warm mead, you are, and a blessed sight after a long day of riding. That fool Mark said you might be anxious—no, he is not that, and I do not care for such trifles now.”

He whirled her right off her feet, swirling her about so she gasped, anxious her flying feet would knock over the cauldron.

He threw her up, and she felt herself sailing in the air, then he caught her safely and gathered her tight in a pair of arms that felt like ropes of iron.

“Now, madam,” he said, bending his fearsome, black brows onto her and spoiling his grim scowl by the golden gleam in his eyes, “you will spend Christmastime with me, at my manor. Then we shall have a day or so here, then back to the manor again. We shall divide our time between each place, for you are the good witch of the forest, and I am lord of my manor, and both need our attention, yes?”

She nodded, wondering what was coming next. Magnus clearly had a speech in mind, and she thought it wise to let him say it.

He gave her a squeeze and a sweet, lingering kiss. “Does that sound fair and just to you?”

“What?” Elfrida stammered. His tongue had teased and explored all parts of her lips and teeth and mouth, and she fairly tingled, her whole body feeling as if she had bathed in honey. “Forgive me, Magnus, could you say over?”

He chuckled. “What a dazzled thing you are! You look as I feel. And ‘Magnus’ is a good start.”

Feeling she could not ask anything while her wits were so besieged, Elfrida tried to ease herself out of his grasp. When that failed, she tried another tactic. “The pottage burns!”

He sniffed and shook his head. “No, it does not, but since you are keen to be away from me—”

“I am not,” Elfrida replied and she felt herself blush for being so revealing. And yet surely she and Magnus had gone past such points where their love needed to be recited like poetry? “This is not going as I planned!” she burst out in frustration.

“No, for sure it is not, and the time for teasing is gone.” Magnus planted her down, none too gently, on a stool, and knelt before her. He brushed a strand of her hair away from her reddened face and took a deep breath.

“Will you marry me?”

* * * *

He had meant to speak more of the advantages for both of them, but he had to know her answer,
now
. “Elfrida?”

“Yes!” She flung her arms about him, “Yes, please! But—”

Sensing her withdrawal, he wrapped his arms about her narrow middle so she could not escape.

“I am a knight and should marry a lady, is that what you are going to say? We have had this talk before. You are the woman I want.”

Her amber eyes narrowed. “Have we spoken so before?”

“Never fret, for sure we have!” he answered, crossing his fingers against what could be a lie, though truly he did not care.
She has accepted me.

She dipped her head, a gesture he recognized as a moment of shyness before she asked something. “What, my heart?”

“I have a favor to beg of you, if I may.”

He felt his own heart expanding, his body glowing with well-being. He felt generous to the whole of Christendom and beyond because Elfrida was to be his wife. “You would have some new gowns? I have some yellow silk from the East that I brought back.” He had bought it in Outremer, hoping that one day it would make his wife to be a bridal gown. For years he had kept it, deep in the bottom of his clothes chest in his manor, telling himself he was too ugly now and a fool for hoping and yet still unable to let it go...

But Elfrida was shaking her head.
“
We shall divide our days between here and your home?
”

“
We shall.
”

“
I shall be your lady?
”

Remembering her hurt when she told him that Joseph had called her a peasant, Magnus went down on both knees before her.
“
Let me swear fealty to you.
”

She looked startled, years dropping from her face so she seemed almost a young girl, before joy dimpled her lips and cheeks.
“
How so, my lord?
”

He reluctantly uncoiled his arms from her slender body and put his arms together, covering his right stump with his left hand.
“
I should bring my hands close, as if in prayer, but since that is impossible now, this is how I do it. Now, you place your hands about mine.
”

She did so, her fingers cool and trembling against his.

Kneeling before her, he spoke,
“
I, Sir Magnus of Norton Mayfield, swear my undying fealty and love to you, Elfrida of Top Yarr. I will be your knight, and you will be my lady. May God strike me dead if I ever break faith with you.
”

“
Hush!
”
said Elfrida quickly, glancing around him as if the walls of her hut had grown ears.
“
That is too much!
”

“
Not for my wife.
”

He was in earnest. He offered her marriage and a marriage between equals. Elfrida kissed him firmly on his scarred mouth to make fast his promise, relieved she was already sitting down.
“
Are you sure?
”
she wanted to ask him, but she knew that he was.

He smiled at her, looking deeply into her eyes.
“
Do I smell pottage? May I have some, wife to be?
”