Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (8 page)

“Sex magic,” she muttered, blushing harder.

Magnus wondered if he had misheard, or misunderstood—the old speech was a second tongue for both of them and so misunderstandings were more than likely. “I beg your pardon?”

She repeated a jumble of words from which he understood “Walter,” “Christina,” and, “but such magic is hard to control.”

“Walter and Christina would make it?” He wondered how that could be, since they were so cruelly separated.

“No, others would act on their behalf. Then the rite would bring them back together.”

“Like a bow and bowstring, you mean?”

“Not really.” She shook her head. “But it will not work.”

No, even smothered in spots, no right lass will fancy me for any carnal magic.
Magnus glowered at Mark until he shuffled farther off with his spade. If he was not going to be doing sex magic, then why should any of his men?

“Come, let me take you and your sister’s veil to the bath,” he said gruffly. He had instructed his men to tip oatmeal into it, too, so one of them would have some relief tonight, at least.

* * * *

It was snowing again. Elfrida watched the large, fluffy flakes drift down from the warmth and privacy of her bath and tried to imagine being snow—cool and white and untouched by anything. She tugged the rough curtain draped about the wooden tub farther apart and spotted Magnus lingering nearby, his back to her as he paced slowly to and fro.

How dare he stand guard for me as if I am helpless!

Her irritation was as swiftly replaced by a pang of tenderness. He had allowed her to bathe first, and the water was delicious. It or the oatmeal had stopped the furious itching across her body for the moment so that when she dipped Christina’s veil within the tub and smoothed it with her hands, she felt as pretty as her sister.

Be easy, Christina, easy and safe, little sister.

She yawned, allowing herself to drift and for the water to support her. It was an embrace, winding about her waist and flanks, cupping her breasts.

Much like a lover, eh?

Elfrida felt herself blush. She had not meant to blurt out the idea of using love magic quite so crudely, but the old speech was so very earthy. She must have used the wrong word, for Magnus’s warm, brown eyes had widened like a young boy’s and then become instantly guarded. It made her sad to realize how many times he must have been taunted by others about lovemaking, when he was so wary now.

“What would you be like as a lover, Sir Magnus?” she murmured, scooping water over the tops of her breasts.

She peeped through the hangings and the falling snow at her ungainly but not ungentle knight. There were women to whom such ugliness as his would be an attraction, but she was not one of those. Accepting that aspect of her nature, she regarded him with guilt-free eyes.

Sir Magnus. A warrior who feared nothing, save ridicule. His courage moved her, and he was an intriguing man, with his crusader past and learning. For the rest he was tall and straight and, even now, well made, with strongly muscled arms, legs, and flanks. Certainly he was a giant amidst the villagers but not naturally clumsy. Aside from some understandable stumbles, he managed his stump and peg leg nimbly enough. In some profiles, as he was for the moment, glancing about the camp with steady, careful watchman’s eyes, he was even handsome, or you could see the remains of strong, stark good looks. His dark, curling hair pleased her, and his rich and mellow brown eyes were a beautiful shock, reaching out to her from the devastation of his face.

Their eyes met briefly, and she felt a glow of pleasure deep in her breasts and belly as he clearly saw and acknowledged her, raising his good hand.

“Good evening,” she murmured, glad that he was still with her. He was not the kind of man who abandoned others and, snug within this warm, enveloping bath, she could admit that not always having to be the strong protector, the witch of her village, was a relief. He understood her loss—she sensed his sympathy as keenly as she sensed the endless, relentless falling of the snow.

He did not grab or scratch, either, and his touch was gentle. In his arms she had felt safe and comforted. She sensed that he liked her, too, and as more than a friend or companion in a quest. Surely he desired her? Being a virgin, she was not entirely sure, but she thought he did—his eyes had certainly widened when she blundered over “sex magic.” She wished, briefly, that she had met him years ago. Magnus would take his time in the act of love.

She smiled at the idea and leaned back against the smooth, wooden boards of the tub, closing her eyes as she imagined stroking her hands up and down Magnus’s long back. Would he be smooth or hairy?

“Hairy, like Samson,” she said aloud and opened her eyes. The scene about her now was white and gray, the twilight behind the tumbling snow turning from dark-blue to black. The plain, heavy hangings set around her tub arched over her head, but a few flakes spilled through the tiny gaps and fell, hissing, into her bath.

Snow had fallen on Magnus’s hair, she noticed, when he next stepped into the gap between her bath hangings, snowflakes making glints of silver amidst the strong, black curls. She saw him shake once, like a boarhound, and the sparkles flew into the evening air.

Have you forgotten? Christina is missing this evening, and for the third night.

Guilt swamped in afresh, and the easy luxury of the bath was suddenly suffocating. Panicking, Elfrida stood up from the stool in the middle of the tub, then rapidly sat down again as Magnus strode past, calling out and waving with his good arm. His eager purpose, good sense, and determination reassured her as she recalled him saying, “I do not think the beast spends his evenings in the forest.”

For the moment, there was nothing more she could do. She settled more comfortably on the submerged stool, checked that her hair was still bound up in its cloth, and forced herself to be still.

* * * *

It was still snowing. Magnus’s missing foot ached, and his good hand was numb. Close to the watch fires, he saw his men glumly eating their supper and knew they were not happy, that they missed their feasts and places in hall.

And Elfrida had bathed and had not invited him in with her. She was safe inside her hut now, eating a portion of good baked fish, no doubt readying herself to sleep and dream, or whatever witches did asleep. His man Mark was splashing in the tub now, frantic to rid himself of fleas. Magnus felt too dispirited to strip and steam tonight—what did it matter if he stank?

Our
Forest
Grendel is not sitting out in the snow, either. The beast is snug and cozy, tended by his stolen brides.
The thought made him mad and sad together.

“Think more truly,” he told himself. “Witchcraft is women’s work, so let Elfrida do it. You are a hunter, and the beast is a quarry.”

He limped to a wagon and took a tall staff from the store of wood stacked on the floor of the car. He lifted a coil of rope and slung it across his shoulder, then marched through the slush and ice to address the guards positioned at the edge of their camp.

“Guard the red-haired woman Elfrida well, for she is not herself,” he ordered each one in turn. “I am for the forest. I will be back by morning.”

His men nodded, used to his wandering at night.

Magnus took the freshest horse and rode out of the camp, always seeking higher ground. He did not expect to find any useful tracks, but he wanted to think. He let his mount slow to an amble and wander where it would while he thought hard.

The landscape about him held no trace of the Forest Grendel, though a wolf had passed through, and a rooting wild boar and a hare. He scraped the fresh snow carefully with the staff and uncovered the tracks of men. There had been a peddler on this road, with a lopsided pack, for one foot had sunk deeper into the earlier snows than the other, and there had been a running shepherd lad, with a few sturdy sheep.

How does the beast move and leave so little trace? How did he know which village held which girl?

Magnus thought some more, and an answer came to him as the snow stopped for a space and a thin crescent moon flickered out between heaps of scudding gray cloud. It was not an answer that pleased him.

But nothing else made sense, he decided, after he and the horse had toiled up a steep, straight track that was still visible in the snow because it was a sunken road. The very ease of the Forest Grendel’s abductions suggested it, and how did he know which girl to take, who was a maid and a bride and who not? The beast could not be days in spying, or he would be spotted, by birds or animals, if not by men, and their clear warning would be known and understood.

There was a further sign—the monster’s fancy blue cup. How had he ever considered the dark stain to be blood? Elfrida had shot him a hard look then, and no wonder. No, the cup and its rare glass and whiff of costly spices told the same story, one of riches.

The rich never worked too hard at anything, so one of the villagers of Yarr must be a talebearer to the monster, a spy for him, and a traitor.

“Tomorrow, please God, we shall ride out again, with a real plan and purpose. And it’s time my forest witch met all the menfolk of all the Yarrs. Sick as she is, she can still make them sweat.”

He spoke aloud, and his horse snorted in answer, a sign of good luck.

As he nudged and coaxed his horse back down the track to his camp, Magnus considered those two powerful words, “sex magic.” The more he tried to forget them, the more vividly his mind and passion worked.

“The little witch is ill, and you should not be thinking of her in that way,” he told himself sternly, but when he pictured Elfrida, he saw her as he had done that first night, beautiful and defiant, as dangerous as a bound angel. That moment was etched into his memory, and now as he rode it became a living tapestry, an evening daydream of him and Elfrida together.

They were snug at his manor house in Norton Mayfield, within the great hall. His men were away—out hunting with Walter and Christina, Magnus decided, as he focused on Elfrida.

His evening dream worked its own magic. Standing before him as he sat in the great chair on the dais, Elfrida had no fever, chill, or pox. She was vibrant with health.

Tenderness warred with passion within him as she bowed and the ends of her cloak slipped from her smooth shoulders. The cloak gaped open, revealing her creamy-white nakedness beneath. By the firelight of the hall, she glowed like a pearl. Her narrow wrists were bound together by a pale-blue ribbon, cunningly knotted. She lifted her hands to him as she spoke.

“What charge am I to answer here, my lord?”

In this evening reverie, he could understand her native speech and answered in kind. “The charge is that of witchcraft, of using sex magic.”

She shrugged off the cloak, standing proudly nude in the firelight. “I have used no bewitchments. I am a good witch, a pious one.”

Magnus felt this throat dry at the sight of her lush, pink-nippled breasts and her sweet blaze of auburn curls. Tormented and beguiled by his own desires, he leaned forward in his chair and at once found himself kneeling beside her, close enough to stroke her slender thighs, if he dare. “What then is this?” he croaked.

She looked down at him with narrowed, bright eyes. Bound and naked as she was, she had no fear of him, and a ready answer. “This is your magic and doing, my lord.”

If only that were true
, Magnus thought, yanked out of the half dream. Disconcerted and amused in equal measure, he dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and urged it into a rapid canter.

But heed this, she did not refuse you
.

The hope was a foolish one, and he laughed. “You are battle comrades, nothing more,” he said aloud, his breath hanging in the still, cold air.