Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (45 page)

She laughed and broke from him to find spoons and dishes for them both.

Epilogue

It was the very eve of Christmas, and he and Elfrida were not yet home at his manor. She had asked if they could come to the wooden tower with the blue door, not explaining her reasons but promising him a full account. Since it was clearly important to her, he had agreed, surprised by her request but happy enough to please her.

Of course Mark and some of his most trusted men were camped outside and watching out, Christmas Eve or not. He was not so much in love as to be foolish.

“Do you expect Denzil to creep back here so we can catch him again?” he asked and was rewarded by her swift smile.

“I neither know nor care if Joseph chooses to come back here, Magnus. That is not why I asked if we could come here tonight.”

He watched her pace about the ground floor of the wooden tower with the blue door, carrying a new, fat, burning candle—one of her own lights, he realized. “What are you looking for?”

“Signs and devices of evil, but there are none on this floor. Can we go up?”

He held the ladder for her and hopped up after. He found her patrolling the second floor and rummaging through the barrels of apples.

“Why do you do this?” he asked.

She looked up from a barrel, her face taut in concentration. “To purify this space.”

“Would fire not work just as well or better?”

“I shall burn this.” She pulled a long, fine white gown from a barrel and allowed it to drift to the floor. “As for the rest”—she glanced about the chamber—“a cleansing is more complete, surer. It will finish things.”

She would not look at him, and Magnus began to suspect there was something she was not yet saying. Joseph Denzil was still free out there, wandering in these forests. It would be good to know he was finished.

“Can I eat an apple now?” he asked, settling cross-legged on the bare floor.

She nodded and continued to move slowly about the room with her flickering candle, at times casting salt, at times saying what sounded to be a prayer.

He had savored his snack, core and all, when she touched his shoulder. “Can we lift some of the apples up to the top floor?”

“Nothing easier.” She was working, so he went with her desires, thinking that he would carry their basket of stores up to the top floor, too. If they were going to be a while, they should certainly break their fast.

“Why do we do this? Can you tell me?” he asked as he bundled apples into his cloak, and she leaned down through the trapdoor to collect his “parcel.”

“They are the means of life,” she answered cryptically, and he let it go at that, recalling the stories of his granddad concerning apples and gods.

Before he could join her through the trapdoor to the third chamber, she began to scamper back down the ladder.
“
I have things to collect. Mark brought them for me.”

“Did he indeed?” Magnus remarked, and wondered how Elfrida and Mark were so reconciled now that Mark would fetch and carry for her.

“He did. I will not be long.
”
Still on the ladder, she kissed him.
“
May I beg another favor and ask you to wait here? It will only be for moments—I will be as quick as I can be, I promise.
”

“
Take all the time you need,
”
he said, feeling intrigued but most content.

After waiting for battles to begin and sieges to stop, the time he watched her slipping to and fro from floor to floor and rushing in and out of the tower seemed nothing. He found another few pebbles tucked into his tunic and began to play a game of catch with them, feeling like a young lad again, hovering outside his lady’s chamber.

The sweet thing was, Elfrida
was
his lady, and soon he would be admitted.

He nodded as she sped past with another bundle and presently he heard the sound of breaking glass and pots and smelt the singe of burning cloth. She put her head through the trapdoor.

“This will be my last trip,” she said breathlessly. “You can come up, sir, if you wish.”

He steadied the ladder for her as she carried a small wooden bowl with her to the second floor, saying as she passed him, “I must bury this, but then I shall be done.”

“Take Mark out with you, when you go,” Magnus said.

He watched her safely onto the ground floor and then mounted the ladder upstairs.

All signs of the necromancer were gone—that was his first thought. His second was that Elfrida had made the chamber beautiful, rich, and mysterious as an Eastern church.

There was a small, narrow window to the east of the old hunting tower. This she had opened so he could see the bright, starry sky, and it was not cold—there were braziers lit and burning steadily and a sweet scent of warm rosewater, the dried petals of roses warming in copper bowls.

It was as white as it had been before, but now the braziers and five fat, burning candles gave it the sheen of a pearl. It was a place of comfort, too, for there were goblets and flasks and a basket of apples, and baskets of other foods that he would look at later, once he had tested the smooth bed.

It was made up beneath the narrow casement, a nest of blankets and sheets that Elfrida surely must have borrowed, for he could not think she possessed so many.

I must have been distracted not to see this heap of stuff traveling with us today from Top Yarr to here, but then I scarcely heeded any in my company save Elfrida.

He chuckled, amused she had achieved this beneath his very nose, and knowing very well what it was. “A bridal chamber,” he said aloud and smiled.

* * * *

Elfrida thanked Mark and sped back inside the tower. When she had buried the last of Joseph’s evil toys, she had a flash of sight, or foresight. She saw a tall, thin figure, lying prone and still in the snow, with a spray of mistletoe hanging over his heart and a black cat settled by his feet, a creature she had never seen before, only sensed. She blinked, and the vision changed, for the cat spat at her and slunk off between the trees into the forest. She tried to see where the place was but could not hold the picture—it was gone.

“Then it is truly finished,” Magnus said when she climbed up to him and told him all. He was also lying prone, but on the bed she had made, looking very comfortable in the candlelight. “It is over, and we both may rest.”

He opened his arms. “Come to bed, my Snow Bride.”

The other called me that, too.
Elfrida hesitated for an instant, but only an instant, for this was Magnus and she was in truth his bride, his bride of earth and soul as well as snow. She knelt on the edge of the nest of blankets and sheets and hugged him as he cradled her.

The night of Christmas Eve drew on, and she drew back so she could see his eyes and face. “There is one magic I hope we can make together,” she said. “A magic of healing.”

“And of love.” With strong, warm fingers he traced the contours of her face and smiled at her. “A magic of life, on the eve of Christmas.”

He laughed and pulled her back into his arms, whispering against her ear, “I understand all that, but if I whisper
sex magic
to you, saucy wench, you have no grounds to protest!”

“Not so, my lord,” she began when he began to touch her, loving her.

They made love all that evening and night within the tower, with new snow falling softly through the narrow casement, and the woods beyond finally at peace.

THE END

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