Lady of the Lake (12 page)

She lapsed into silence again, deep in her own thoughts. Edon finished his drink and took the empty goblet from Tala’s lax fingers and set both on a sideboard. He caught her hand in his, saying, “Come, the hour grows late. It is time we were to bed.”

Tala looked quickly up at him. She would die before admitting that the bottom had just fallen out of her stomach. Edon stood, gently tugging on her hand, insisting she get to her feet. Had she thought to gain more time to know him better before she had to sleep with him? Did her wishes matter now that she had as good as committed herself to accepting the kings’ order to marry him?

Only the fact that she had given her solemn word kept Tala from jerking her hand out of his. Edon bid good-night to his company and led her to his chamber in the corner of the keep.

A servant followed with a bowl and a pitcher of water and linens for the princess to use when she washed. Edon directed the servant in placing the bowl and pitcher on a stand at the side of his bed. Then Edon opened a chest at the foot of his box bed and offered Tala the use of any of
its contents. “This contains your clothing and jewelry that were salvaged from the fire at Wootton. Use whatever you need.”

Tala thanked him, then shyly looked up at him. “Lord, I must send word to Mother Wren of my whereabouts. My servants—”

“Will worry, will they not?” Edon finished her thought for her. “Where should such message be sent?”

“To the priory in Loytcoyt. Wren has gone there. Just give her word that I am well. She will see to the rest.”

Edon withdrew, allowing her privacy to prepare for bed.

Rig saw Edon coming down the stairs and joined him at the door of the keep for a walk under the stars. Edon liked to patrol the perimeter of the fortress each night before he retired. Rig liked to walk the length and breadth of the holding with him. Sometimes they talked the whole time. Sometimes they had little to say that hadn’t already been said at some point in the day.

Under the old Viking ways it was none of Rig’s business who Edon took to his bed on any given night. But since Rig’s baptism, that particular foible of his unchristian overlord had become problematic. Tonight it was doubly so. Rig knew that Edon intended to keep the princess of Leam from leaving Warwick at all.

They strolled to the gate in silence, neither speaking. The guards were alert and the gates secured for the night. A rabbit hopped out from behind a stash of barrels and scampered across the ward. Edon frowned. “Someone has left a cage open, I vow.”

“Aye.” Rig nodded, having more important things on his mind than open rabbit cages.

“Who is in charge of the rabbits?” Edon asked, ever the stickler for details that had been delegated to others. He held everyone accountable for doing their jobs well and woe unto him who turned out to be a slacker.

“The son of the Lombard Dane—Ranulf, I think is his
name. You gave them a hide of land east of the quarry. Yesterday they put up the rails of their longhouse, but I believe Ranulf sleeps in the loft.”

“We shall see if he sleeps,” Edon remarked. He turned his attention to the wall.

“While we’re on the subject of sleep—” Rig found the opening he needed to speak his mind “—you may have my hammock, lord. I’ll sleep quite well under the stars.”

“I have no intention of sleeping in a hammock, Rig, not when I have a perfectly good bed upstairs.”

“But the princess is in it,” Rig responded flatly.

“Yes,” Edon said with satisfaction. “And it took me quite long enough to get her there. Rig, you need to start making inquiries of the Mercians about Embla’s oubliette. I’ve heard the expression bandied about. I am concerned about the last words Asgart spoke to me before he died.”

“What were they, lord?” Rig asked, frowning over Edon’s response to mention of the princess. They were not man and wife in the eyes of God. With Edon’s baptism coming on Saturday, when the bishop returned from Evesham, Rig had a right to be concerned about sin.

“I had my blade at his throat and his life in my hands. I offered to spare him if he would tell me where Harald Jorgensson’s bones were buried.”

“Jarl Harald was a Viking. They would have burned his remains, lord, as is our old custom,” Rig stated logically.

“Not if Harald had been murdered. A funeral pyre honoring him would have caused notice. No, Rig, if you do away with your enemy, you do not celebrate his passage to the otherworld with a grand conflagration…or even with a small one. You bury him quietly with few men knowing the whereabouts of the grave.”

“Ah,” Rig said, nodding. “That makes sense. Yet we have investigated all fires of any note already. None looked suspicious, as I recall.”

Edon gazed at two longhouses dominating the northeast
quadrant of the compound. Embla Silver Throat’s was as quiet as a Christian abbey after vespers. The other, a barracks housing unmarried warriors, blazed with light. Vikings liked to drink and play games of chance late into the night.

Standing in the beam of light spilling out that longhouse’s door, Edon could see to the trestle beside the hearth. The atheling of Leam and Nels of Athelney sat on a bench, the bishop deep in passionate speech with the silent, sullen-faced boy.

“What do you make of our prince?” Edon asked.

“I see the paint on his skin did not wash off.”

“No, Thorulf told me it is permanent. It is very odd for such work to have been done on a boy. It would signify.”

“What?” Rig had come of age in the far northlands of Caledonia, fighting the Picts. They, too, were a strange people—going to war naked, like the Celts, and painted with woad from head to toe.

“It signifies that young Venn is special…especially to his clan.” Edon finished the thought. “Each of his tattoos symbolically imbue him with the powers of the dragon’s spirits. Look at him and you can almost believe that mad tale Embla told tonight is possible.”

“Mad is right. I have asked around. No one who is privy to the rites of the druid sacrifices will say a word about what transpires in the ceremonies. Mark my words, Edon. That woman is unstable.”

“I know. I think it best that I send her to Guthrum. It concerns me that she spoke of the prince as though he was a complete stranger to her. I believe she knew his identity all along. I also believe she intended to kill him. She was doing her best to behead him when I jumped into the fray.

“And it is possible,” Edon added in afterthought, “that the satchel in question is not the prince’s contraband, but Embla’s. She gave no explanation for being outside the gates this night. They were not open. Thorulf closed themj
behind me when I rode in with the princess. I had to climb the palisade and jump.”

Rig silently considered Edon’s words. He did not trust Embla at all.

Edon began walking again, setting the pace. They came to the stone wall edging the motte. So far all was well. Crickets chirped. A nightingale warbled off in the distance. The horses hobbled in the holding pen snored as they slept standing next to each other.

“What makes you believe she knew the prince’s identity?” Rig asked.

“From the things the boy said under his breath. He was afraid of her, but his hatred was too great to be contained. Also Tala insisted that the leather satchel isn’t his.”

“The princess will obviously do everything she can to protect the boy. Even lie if it will aid him.”

“Yes, Rig, but that’s what I find the most puzzling. Were the boy attending the king’s school, his security would be greatly enhanced.” Edon gave his opinion bluntly. “Why risk the dangers of living in the forest, in hostile land where an obvious enemy such as Embla could have at any time captured the atheling?”

“I can’t answer that.” Rig scowled. “There must be something here that requires his presence. Could it be as simple as the land itself? That the prince retains ownership by possession?”

“Could be. In fact, that makes more sense than anything else where the boy is concerned.” Edon held up his hand abruptly, gesturing for silence. To his left he heard a scuttling noise behind a haystack. Suddenly, a youth lunged out of the stack and pounced on a rabbit he’d flushed out of hiding.

“Got you!” the lad declared. He scrambled to his feet, grinning, holding the struggling rabbit by its ears. When he saw Edon and Rig watching him, the youth changed his hold upon the animal, supporting its wild, thumping
hindlegs with his other hand. He ducked his head in apology, saying, “Sorry to startle you, lord.”

Both Edon and Rig recognized the young Viking. It was Ranulf, the youngest son of the Lombard who had set fire to Wootton. “Why are rabbits scattered about the ward, Ranulf? Were you careless in locking the cage after they were fed?”

“Oh, no, Lord Wolf.” Ranulf grimaced. “Two children got into the byre and opened the cage. I chased them out, but ever since, I’ve had to chase down the rabbits they let loose. I think this was the last one.”

“Whose children?” Edon expected parents to control their children and teach them to respect the property of others.

“They were none that I know and oddly dressed, not Viking children, Lord Wolf. It was a boy and a small girl. She had a valuable gold torque at her throat. I heard her say she wanted a black rabbit of her own. I believe they were going to steal one. But they ran off when I shouted at them. I have not seen them again, lord.”

Edon accepted Ranulf’s testimony as the truth and dismissed him with the admonition that there was a black-and-white rabbit still loose near the barrels stacked at the gates. He continued on his circuit of the grounds with Rig. “A boy with a girl wearing a valuable torque, eh?”

“And strangers.” Rig considered that of greater importance.

“The princess told me there are no rabbits in this shire, though I know that there are hares in Britain. The native animals are not as meaty nor do they have the variety of fur of our animals,” Edon murmured. “Do you suppose the prince was that boy?”

“There is one way to find out,” Rig stopped and took his leave of Edon. “I’ll take Ranulf to have a look at the atheling and see if he can identify the culprit.”

Edon approved of that idea. Ranulf’s testimony would
put a different light on the atheling’s purpose for sneaking in and out of Warwick.

Edon proceeded to the bathhouse to think things over while he sat in a hot tub and washed away the day’s accumulation of dirt and grime from his body. Inadequate as it was, it was still the only bathhouse within the fortress.

The new one was not even half built. Hopefully, Maynard would solve the problem of getting fresh water flowing shortly. Edon scrubbed diligently, then changed into the robe Eli had laid out for him. With nothing left to delay him from retiring and spending the balance of the night having his way with the alluringly beautiful princess of Leam, Edon returned to the keep.

T
ala prowled Edon’s chamber, as restless as any of his wild animals in their cages. A window, partially glazed with diamonds of colored glass set in lead, fractured the moonlight spilling across his bed.

As interior chambers went, it was spacious, giving her plenty of room to pace and fret. She thought she could get used to looking out this window and being able to see so much of her valley at one time.

She did think about leaving, about tearing the linens on the bed into strips and making a rope to escape out the wide-open, unglazed portion of the window. Only she was too honorable to do that.

Or, she admitted, she was too curious about the night to come to risk going back on her word. She had never been with a man. The thought of staying the whole night with Edon had her stomach fluttering.

As it was, she willed him to return because the agony of waiting was too much to bear. Tala sat on the window ledge, looking at the sky. The stars hung like bright jewels in the darkness. Nothing moved. No wind sent clouds racing across the pale moon. All was still, quiet, utterly at peace.

Tala worried about her sisters, but by this time, with the
moon rising in the sky, they would be asleep in their beds, as would the servants.

No, she and Venn wouldn’t be missed until morning. Then Tegwin, Selwyn and Stafford would raise a terrible alarm. Tala sighed, and could only hope that Edon fulfilled his promise to send word to Mother Wren of her whereabouts.

“What makes you sigh so deeply?” Edon asked as he quietly closed the door. Startled, Tala whirled around and bumped her head on the window frame.

“Oh! You’re here!” She jumped to her feet, took one step to meet him and tripped, treading on the hem of her gown.

“So I am,” Edon caught her before her ungainly pivot dumped her on the floor at his feet. It was quite nice the way she almost landed flush against his chest. “Steady there.”

Self-consciously, Tala picked one foot, then the other off the folds of her gown. It was voluminous, diaphanous. It should have made her look like the most beautiful woman in the world. What it had really done was make her look like a goose. She blushed to the roots of her hair and said, “Oh.”

Edon chuckled, picking her up and settling her back on the broad expanse of stone at the window. “What were you looking at, my lady?”

She dropped her hands in her lap and demurely looked at them. Edon settled onto the window ledge beside her, gazing out at the sky, giving her the chance to recover her composure. “Oh, the moon and the silver ribbon of the river. Leam valley is very beautiful from this vantage point of yours.”

Edon lifted her chin with one finger, tilting her face to his. Her hair was undone, brushed and hanging down her back. It formed a scarlet river of soft, sweet waves that
fell to her ankles. “I chose the view from this window, planned it from the first.”

“How so?” Tala asked. “You only just arrived a few days ago. They have been building this keep for years.” She shook her head, unable to believe so little time had passed. It seemed she had known him forever. Or else had been waiting for him forever.

“Oh, I was here years ago, ten in fact. At about the time the abbey at Loytcoyt was built. That was when I bought Warwick Hill.”

Tala lifted her chin from his fingers. “Bought?”

“Aye.” Edon nodded. “I paid a dear price for it, too. Daffyd ap Griffin haggled more gold out of me than any man I’ve ever bargained with. But I wanted this view of the valley. It is perfect.”

“He took advantage of you,” Tala said simply. “Uncle Daffyd didn’t own this hill anymore than he owned the wind. Nor do you own the hill of Warwick, Edon Halfdansson. You never will.”

Edon’s hand dropped to his waist and rested there, his elbow thrusting out into the darkened chamber. “What are you saying, Tala ap Griffin? Do you cast your bold promise in my face now that I have let your brother go unpunished?”

“I do nothing of the sort,” Tala responded, shaking her head, meeting his gaze without shying from the intensity she saw there. “I am telling you that my uncle, Daffyd ap Griffin, owned nothing, therefore he sold you nothing. The hill of Warwick never belonged to him. Nor does it belong to you, even though you build a fine stone fortress upon it.”

“It is my house and I will defend it with my last breath,” Edon assured her forcefully.

“I expect you will, but that does not make the land yours. The land belongs to the past, the present and the
future. It is Leam in perpetuity, and it will endure beyond our lifetimes, as it endured before.”

“During this lifetime, Warwick Hill shall be mine,” he said resolutely. “That is the way it is to be, Tala. You may dither upon the issue all you like, but Warwick is mine, and I keep what is mine, just as I shall keep you all the rest of our days.”

“I don’t see why you should want that,” Tala said.

“You don’t?” Edon looked at her face in the moonlight. “You know you are very beautiful, don’t you?”

“No more so than others.” The denial was spontaneous, for she saw herself as unattainable no matter how desirable or beautiful she might be. She could not seem to look anywhere except at his mouth or the small hollow in the base of his throat, where a drop of water from his wet hair had gathered and glistened so invitingly.

Tentatively, Tala laid her fingertips on his breastbone. He wore a robe similar to hers, though the material of his was a heavier, more durable weave than this silky gown she had chosen from his trunk. Unable to resist, she touched that glistening sparkle of water and smoothed it away with the pad of her index finger.

“You have come from the river,” she guessed.

“Nay, the bathhouse,” Edon replied huskily, shivering at her boldly evocative, exceedingly sensuous touch.

“Ah, yes, you Vikings put much store in your bathhouses, do you not?”

“Aye, it’s an exquisite pleasure, my lady.”

He shook his damp hair away from his shoulders, embracing her with both hands, drawing her body against his. Her heat nourished the spark of desire flowing through him. Edon gently touched her mouth with his, kissing her with the greatest of care. She was so like a wild creature, shy and skittish, needing to be tamed to his touch before he dared allow the full intensity of his desire for her to show.

Tala shivered as his lips slowly coaxed hers to soften. Then that shiver became a shudder Edon relished, as he licked her lower lip with his tongue. He loosened the sash at her waist and slid the gown off her arms. The rustle of cloth falling to her feet whispered a counterpoint to the delicate intake of breath in her throat. He folded strong arms around her, pressing their bodies close before the open window.

The night air touched Tala’s skin in a cool bath, as the heat of his hands stroked over her breasts, her belly, gripped her bottom and lifted her against the hard heat of his arousal.

“I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you, Tala ap Griffin,” Edon said as he lowered his head to kiss her fully. The honesty of that admission compelled him to seek more from her. Wanting her wasn’t enough. He wanted to love her, consume her, die in her arms. “Open your mouth, Tala. Yield to me.”

That was the greatest taboo of her life, yet she could no more refuse to yield to Edon of Warwick than she could will herself to stop breathing. Tala closed her eyes and told herself she made this sacrifice so that Venn might live.

Her conscience demanded more honesty than that. She wanted the Wolf of Warwick the way any woman wants a man. Surrendering to his command was the most necessary pleasure she had ever experienced in her life.

His tongue thrust hot and deep inside her mouth, signaling that the duel between them had begun in earnest. She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him deeper, closer, shuddering as he shed his own robe and his naked body pressed flush against hers from thigh to breast. Hot, hard and hair-roughened skin rubbed against the soft, sleek curves of her own flesh, exciting and thrilling her.

Everywhere that her hands touched or roamed on his neck and shoulders they met solid flesh and muscle. His body fascinated and intrigued her.

His arm tightened around her hips, lifting her to carry her to his bed. There he laid her down on her back, parted her legs and settled himself in the cradle of her hips. His arousal felt hard and thick where it nestled against her womanly curls and caused a fiery burn as his weight pressed against her.

She knew there was more to this act than the mere touch of bodies pressing hotly together. She had felt pleasure before, when he’d kissed and fondled her breasts, and had not forgotten the excruciating heat it had caused in her loins. That prior experience had not taught her of the magnitude of desire his bold touch could arouse when his hand slipped freely between their bodies and daringly parted her soft nether folds.

Utterly without volition, she arched toward that delectable pleasure, blinded by the power of his hand as he coaxed a flood of desire to surge in her veins. She had not known her body could ache so, want so. Yet what exactly it was she suddenly yearned for, she did not know.

Edon sighed as her hands slipped down his chest. “Do not distract me,” he whispered, then caught her breast in his mouth, kissing it, suckling with fervor. He slid his finger deep inside her, encountering the barrier that he hadn’t really believed would be there.

But Tala ap Griffin’s maidenhead was intact. So Edon moved slowly, bringing her to pleasure with great care. He wanted her ready for his intrusion, so that there would be little pain in their joining.

Tala gasped, then screamed, and died a little when it became so intense her whole body throbbed and tightened in shuddering completion.

“No more,” she begged, pushing his hand away.

“Ah, my lady, there is much more,” Edon warned her, shifting so his shaft was poised at her sweet, moist portal. He kissed her deeply, dueling with her tongue, sucking gently upon her lower lip, teaching her all that he wanted
her to know about kissing. She was a willing pupil, adept and quick. Every touch he taught her she added to her growing repertoire of responses in kind.

As ripe as she was, she was unprepared for the intrusion of his shaft. He came in slowly at first, and her eyes opened and widened in shock. She gripped his upper arms tightly and cried out, “Stop!”

“Lady, I cannot.” Edon caught her shoulders firmly and thrust into her, nearly seated to the hilt. She struggled to escape, but that only completed his downward drive. He trembled deliciously, forcing himself to become perfectly still, to accommodate her. “It is done, Tala.”

She panted rapidly, trying to catch her breath. The sense of fullness was intense. She wanted to cry out, but withheld the shout. Bravely, she ignored the tears in her eyes. Abruptly she looked up at him and said magnanimously, “You may continue. Finish it!”

“I would be a coward did I not, lady.” Edon kissed her mouth, then licked the salty tears from her eyelashes. The sheer outrageousness of her courage compelled him to cosset her tenderly. “A breaching is always difficult at first. But you will come to accommodate me with practice. We will practice this often, my darling.”

Tala did not feel like his darling. The pleasure of moments ago had faded completely. She felt stabbed and deflated. This breaching hurt.

Edon caught her fingers as they flew to her mouth to press back a cry. He sought to bring her back to the pleasure at hand with deep, sensuous kisses that blinded her to the discomfort. Somehow, he controlled his lust in spite of the great pressure her tight sheath placed upon his shaft. He bent his head, kissing her pliant mouth, sucking upon her soft, giving breasts. But he could control his own over-whelming sense of urgency only so long. Thankfully, she made a few tentative thrusts forward with her own hips and widened her legs, adjusting to his intrusion.

That was the signal his body needed. He gripped her shoulders, bracing as he withdrew. Her breath caught in her throat as he plunged downward in the joy of a masculine conquest. She was so tight and firm, her muscles clenching him with every stroke. No grip was sweeter. He came with a bone-shaking, elemental force, his seed spewing inside her, filling her completely. Then he collapsed helpless as a newborn babe, spent and shuddering upon her.

Tala gasped for air, shaken by the force of their mating. Edon’s weight covering her seemed the most fitting end to their joining. She reveled in his exhaustion, seeing that as the supreme triumph of her femininity. This freed her at last. She no longer need pose as the virgin princess of Leam for her people. She could pass the torch to Gwynnth.

How easy breaking a lifetime taboo really was.

In deepest gratitude, she kissed Edon’s damp cheek and thanked him.

“Why do you thank me, Tala? I have hurt you abominably with my lust. I could not hold back and make this first joining easier upon you. I’ve been too long without a woman.”

“You jest with me, surely,” Tala replied. “How can you claim to be without women when you have brought so many with you to Warwick?”

Offended, Edon tweaked her nose. “I have brought many men to Warwick as well, my lady. I do not make love to their wives or their maidservants. I am a Viking, yes, but not a barbarian.”

“You are a strange Viking, then. Few others I have met have any scruples whatsoever.”

Edon gave her observation some thought. It was true he was not like other men, or other Vikings. He had never before felt any need to explain himself to a woman in his bed. But Tala wasn’t just any woman, she was his life mate. The woman who would share his bed for the rest of
their days together. He felt a need to strengthen the bonds between them.

He caught her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, and looked deeply into the soft amber eyes that returned his gaze without wavering.

“Perhaps when one starts out life as a hostage and remains so indefinitely through the years, one learns to walk carefully wherever one goes,” Edon replied, simplifying his history for her.

“You have been a hostage?” Tala asked, taken aback by that admission.

“Aye, before my milk teeth were all gone, I began to serve my father, Halfdan, and then my brother Guthrum as their emissary of good faith to the emperor of the East” Edon shifted his weight off of her, settling her comfortably in the crook of his arm.