Lady of the Lake (14 page)

“No, Your Majesty, I have nothing to add about the jarl’s unfortunate disappearance. It boded ill for all of Warwick, for Jarl Harald was a fair man for a Viking. I cannot say the same for his harridan wife.”

“So it is true what I hear then?” the king concluded. “That she blames all of Warwick for murdering the jarl?”

“Aye, lord, she does, and her wrath has been a hard cross to bear,” the abbot admitted.

The king plucked a purple grape from a vine and tasted it, thoughtfully considering the tart flavor. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Guthrum and I meet to discuss the appropriate wergild due for the life of a king’s nephew, among other things. He has written to me that some of her attacks upon the peasantry have been justified.

“We agreed upon an emissary to take control of the shire and begin holding monthly eyres. It is his youngest brother by Halfdan’s last wife, the Christian princess, Mellisande of Ireland. Edon is his name. Have you met the jarl?”

“No, lord, I cannot say that I have. I have heard rumors
that the jarl arrived in Warwick a sennight ago. He brought with him a most curious retinue whose fame has spread across the shire in a matter of days.”

The king turned at the sound of running feet stamping down the path between the vines. A tonsured brother huffed onto the terrace, his brown robes hiked above his bare ankles, and his round face flushed with the heat.

“My lord king, brother abbot!” The monk fell to his knees before them. “Riders approach from Fosse Way out of the north. Shall I ring the alarm?”

“How many riders?” asked the king bluntly. “Is it a battle party?”

“Ten, sire, each on a separate mount. Warriors armed with swords and shields and battle-axes.”

The king motioned to his guard for scouts to be sent out to meet the war party before the walls. Alfred’s visit to the abbey had been accomplished incognito. Only twenty loyal men had accompanied him, but he was well prepared for trouble, should it come.

“Sound your usual alarm, Abbot, and bring your brethren in from the far fields,” he instructed the priest.

It was nearing midday, a time when the monks were scattered far out along the demesne, tending the dikes that allowed water from the Avon to flood the furrows in their ripening fields of grain. The animals were let out to graze for the day.

King Alfred continued his perusal of the vineyard, not concerned by the possibility of attack from the north. He had fought the Vikings many times with far less propitious odds.

The war party was halted outside the abbey walls. The king’s scout brought only two intruders inside with him. The king immediately recognized the warrior striding to-ward him with a young squire dogging his heels.

Bishop Nels of Athelney, one of Alfred’s oldest and dearest friends, marched across the vineyard like a champion.
They embraced heartily, clapping each other soundly on the back.

“What brings you to Evesham, Nels?” Alfred demanded of his old friend. Nels had stood by him in the dark days of his rule, when the only land Alfred could call his kingdom was the surrounded-by-a-flood, thirty-acre hill of Athelney.

The king and the bishop were as different as night and day. The handsome Saxon king towered above the bull-dog-faced Celt. Yet both could fight brutally at the drop of an iron-studded gauntlet, and both had learned to cherish peace more than anything in this vexatious, temporal world.

“Trouble, what else?” Nels laughed deeply, the sound rumbling from the pit of his deep chest. He quickly grabbed hold of the squire lingering behind him. “I come from Warwick, where this quarrelsome boy’s life hangs by a thread. He needs a sound beating to straighten out his thinking, but I feared I had not the right to deliver it. So I have brought him to the abbot for sanctuary.”

Alfred gazed down at the young lad in the bishop’s beefy grip. He looked to be a disreputable peasant by his rough clothes, and no challenge to the bishop’s authority. The king’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a woad tattoo under the boy’s shirt. Nels also had tattoos under his fine linen cassock. Most Celts did.

“Sanctuary?” Alfred scoffed. “What’s your name, boy?”

Venn cast a belligerent look at the Saxon and kept his jaw clamped shut. He knew better than to admit who he was to anyone. Tala would kill him if he did.

“You’ll speak now, boy.” Nels gave the lad a sound shake. “This is King Alfred standing before you. You’ll show him the respect he deserves, else I’ll take you back to Warwick and let the Danes do what they will with you.”

Venn’s chin jerked up, total surprise registering on his
face. The Saxon was dressed in hunting clothes not much different from the ones Venn wore every day. His golden hair was clubbed at the back of his head with a piece of leather chord and he wore neither torque nor crown as a king should wear. But the man’s regal bearing gave eloquent testimony to his identity and sublime proof that the bishop spoke the truth.

“Your Majesty.” Venn dropped to his knee before King Alfred. This man was his true guardian and the liege to whom Venn owed his life and his fealty. “I am Venn ap Griffin, the atheling of Leam. Your arm and your sword is sorely needed at Warwick. Vikings hold my sister imprisoned in their fortress. I fear Princess Tala has been violated, forced into an unholy alliance even as we speak. This priest will not take arms with me to slay them, though he had the men and the wherewithal to come to our aid last eve.”

That was quite a mouthful for a sullen boy who hadn’t spoken five civil words to Nels of Athelney in the past twelve hours.

Alfred looked to the bishop for explanation. His comrade-in-arms shook his head in wonder. “Perhaps we’d best retire to a shady spot, Alfred. This is going to take some lengthy explaining. Atheling or not, the boy stands accused of attempting to poison all of Warwick. Jarl Edon remanded him to my custody to bring to you. The young heathen and his sister are witches.”

Two words in the bishop’s speech told the king where things stood in Warwick. Tala was up to her old tricks, trying to scare the superstitious Vikings off her land by preying on their deep-seated pagan beliefs. He turned to the abbot, drawing the learned priest into the fold. “My good abbot, this youngster looks half-starved to my eyes. Would you be so kind as to take him to your refectory and feed him?”

“My liege, I want to fight, not eat,” Venn declared
hotly. “There isn’t time. We must ride with all haste back to Warwick.”

Alfred fixed Venn ap Griffin with his most intense glare. He could be imperious when the need arose. “Do you dare to command your king?”

“Nay, sire, I implore you. My sister is in danger. The Wolf of Warwick will devour her.”

“The Wolf of Warwick will not harm one hair on your sister’s head. Tala ap Griffin is to wed Edon of Warwick by my command. You, Venn of Learn, will attend the wedding, provided I get to the bottom of this business of poisoning Warwickshire. Now, you will go with the abbot and sit and eat your fill. I will speak with you after I have sorted with the bishop what’s really the trouble. Good day, boy.”

Venn’s eyes widened in shock. He wanted to argue that that couldn’t be so. Tala married! No princess of Learn had ever married. The king turned away and walked off with the bishop. Venn’s jaw sagged.

The abbot caught hold of his arm, tugging him back to his feet. Venn accompanied him to the abbey’s vast kitchen. There, every kind of food a growing boy dreamed of was readily at hand. As starved as Venn was, he thought he’d died and gone to a Christian’s heaven.

I
t was market day at Warwick. Though she had awoken rested, the afterglow of Edon’s thorough lovemaking made Tala feel lazy. She lay abed, listening to the community beyond the open window come to life.

The gates of the fortress were flung wide, allowing cart after cart to lumber across the creaking wooden bridge. Animals were driven out of their pens to the fields for the day. Oxen lowed and snorted, pulling their loads. Farmers and craftsman called out cheerful greetings to one and all, announcing their wares in bellowing voices.

Underlying the commotion of commerce was the noise of stonecutters and masons setting about their heavy, racket-producing work. The blacksmith’s anvil rang. His bellows hissed as the banked embers at his forge were coaxed to life. Carpenters slammed wood ladders against the stone walls of the keep outside Edon’s high window.

There was no hope for a longer, lingering sleep. Tala had to get up. She quickly washed and was in her kirtle when Lady Eloya knocked on the door, bringing her a fresh gown to wear. Eloya insisted upon doing Tala’s hair and put a cushion on a stool before Tala could refuse.

This morning Tala needed the cosseting. Her body ached in the most tender places. Servants came in and
stripped the jarl’s bed of its linens and put fresh sheets in their place. Not a word was whispered about the blood-stained linens they took away to wash. Eloya put her hands on Tala’s shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze that as much as said welcome to womanhood.

They broke their fast to the clamoring of a righteous racket made by hammers, saws, chisels. Satisfied from the bread and cheese on the morning table, Tala went out to have a look around the ward. The fortress gates were open to one and all. She took that to mean that she could leave at will. She certainly should go to Black Lake and check on her sisters and the old ones.

Only leaving Warwick was the last thing she wanted to do, and she mentally justified her decision by imagining dire repercussions if she did leave. What would happen to Venn if she left Warwick without Edon’s permission? Would Edon allow her to go if she explained about her three sisters remaining in Arden Wood?

More importantly, where was Venn? Then she remembered that Edon had told the bishop to take Venn to Evesham this morning. Assuming that that’s where her brother was, Tala contented herself with wandering among the gaily decorated stalls of the merchants.

She went first to the stall of the Leam goldsmiths, for she spotted their bright awning right away. They were surprised to see her inside Warwick. All her people knew Warwick was not a safe place for a princess of Leam to be. Rather than answer questions, Tala inspected their many new items—rings and armlets, buttons and bracelets that showed their great skill.

Jacob, the diamond cutter who rented a square in the goldsmiths’ stall, said to her, “My lady, King Alfred bought six stones for his lady wife and daughters yesterday in Worcester.”

“He did?” Tala said, surprised to hear that her kinsman was so near to Warwick.

“Aye.” Jacob nodded, proud to have news of the king’s whereabouts. “He had been hunting in Malverne. You must take one of these baubles before they are all gone. It is all we have of this design, Princess.”

Tala removed the jeweled pin from a brooch. “It is very beautiful, Jacob. Perhaps I can interest the jarl’s ladies in your work. They linger in the keep, fussing over the baby’s clothing.”

“Is it true that there is a Jewess among the ladies?” Jacob asked. He was also a matchmaker among his tribe.

“Aye, Rebecca of Hebron is her name, but she is already married.”

“And you, Princess? Are the rumors true that you will soon wed?”

“When did you hear that?” Tala was startled by the question.

“Days ago, in Loytcoyt. May I offer my felicitations.” Jacob bowed obsequiously, the tight curls of his forelocks bobbing before his prominent ears. “You must accept the matched brooches as a wedding present from my house to yours.”

“I couldn’t possibly accept so grand a gift, Jacob, and you know that.” Tala put the brooch back in the jewel merchant’s hand. He was not her subject and owed her no tithe. The goldsmiths, on the other hand, did. They hovered nearby, staring at her so intently they were almost rude, and listening openly to her words with Jacob.

“Is it true, my lady? the elder of the two brothers asked. “Do you break custom and take a husband? Where is your torque that we made for your coming of age?”

Edon overheard the goldsmiths ask their questions and saw how Tala self-consciously touched her neck when reminded of her missing badge of rank. She did not have to explain to them what she had done with her torque. He came to her side and put a proprietary hand on her shoulder.

“The princess’s torque had a flaw in it that scratched her delicate skin,” he told the smiths. “Show me what you have that is better made.”

Both smiths took exception to the jarl’s words, for there were no finer torques in the world than those they created for the princesses of Leam. They exchanged a look between them, then the younger brother brought forth a heavy rosewood casket from beneath his stall. He set it on the trestle, produced an iron key and unlocked the hasp.

Inside the casket were four torques on a velvet tray. Only one was crafted of the three-wire, nine-strand gold necessary for a royal Leamurian ornament. The smiths folded their arms across their chests and allowed Edon to choose what he liked, smug in their certainty that he would not know the difference.

The gold of each torque glistened in the morning sun. Edon unerringly took the finest one from the cloth-lined tray. It was heavy and pure, the twisted strands malleable in his hands.

Tala held her breath as he handled the sacred neck ornament. Yesterday she would have considered it a fitting gift for Branwyn, the Lady of the Lake. Yesterday Tala had been a virgin and fit to act as a go-between for her people to the goddess. Today she was not. The weight of that sin colored her throat and face. She could not look at Edon or either of the goldsmiths to save her soul.

“This is of excellent work,” Edon said after a moment’s close inspection. “But I do not like the fobs at the ends. Have you any wolf heads?”

“Ah,” said the smiths in unison, having come prepared for just such a request from the new jarl, “yes, lord, we do.”

“Show them to me,” Edon commanded.

One lifted the upper tray, which was cleverly inserted in the casket that contained the torques. Under it was a whole collection of cast heads—fierce wolves, snarling
wolves, thoughtful wolves, sleeping wolves and young wolves. Each was a perfect pair to cap the ends of any torque in the tray above.

Edon considered the heads and the weight of the nine-stranded torque in his hand. It was too heavy an ornament for Tala’s slender neck, and a wolf head simply did not suit her. But then her torque must have been of a similar weight and it had been capped with winged dragons.

He chose the young wolves and ordered the goldsmiths to change the heads on the torque in his hand. Then he took another one, of three strands of gold beautifully chased, and put that around Tala’s neck.

“Oh, no, Edon, you mustn’t.” She began to remove the torque the instant he fitted the ornament around her throat, but he caught her hands, stilling them.

“Be quiet, Tala,” he said sternly. Then he lifted her chin and considered the fit and the style. “This will do for my lady. I also need rings for her hand and mine as well, a matched set. I like that design with the interlocking bars.”

He selected a Celtic wedding-band set. They were a tradition among her people, for couples who married for love.

“As you wish, lord.” The smiths bowed, asking to size their fingers before Edon and Tala left to visit another stall. He allowed the fitting, then tucked Tala’s hand firmly on his arm and walked with her down the row of stalls.

“I wondered where you had gotten yourself off to, my lady,” he said by way of directing the topic of discussion. Theo had divined what she’d done with her torque, but it remained to be explained
why
she had done such a drastic thing. That was what Edon wanted most to know.

He put the question to her. “You never did tell me why you sacrificed your torque. This one is not so fine, but I see your people expect to see you properly adorned. I have never seen so many men give a single woman such out-rageous
looks all at one time. What is the symbolism I am missing?”

Tala touched the lightweight necklace at her throat. “Thank you for the gift, lord. I will see that you are reimbursed the cost.”

Why she had cast her sacred badge of rank into the lake was a matter between herself and the goddess. At the time she had not realized what it would mean to her people. She saw now that they thought the Viking lord had stripped her of her honor. That he had in effect raped her as his warriors raped their land.

Tala could do nothing about setting the gossip straight until after Lughnasa. Likewise, Edon’s answers had to wait until then as well. If she admitted the truth to him, she knew Edon would interfere with Venn’s destiny.

This marriage talk covered her people’s sense of shame. Princesses of Leam did not marry. Those who broke taboo eventually were ostracized, shunned and went to live in the glens alone. Some had become powerful witches, feared and revered. Morgan le Fey was one.

“You will not repay me for any gift I present you,” Edon said severely, refusing her offer. “Let us go and look among the cloth merchants. You have need of clothing suitable for Warwick. I will set Eloya and Rebecca to work making you new garments as soon as we have chosen good cloth.”

“Are you plying me with the gifts of a leman, lord? Paying me for the service I rendered to you last night?”

Edon stopped dead in his tracks, his hand tightening on Tala’s arm. He whirled her around before him, determined to make her answer him. “What did you say?”

What she had said did not bear repeating. Certainly not in a louder voice to make her meaning and intent any more clear than it had been the first time. Edon’s faculties were sharp and intact. He knew exactly what she meant, and it made him livid that she would think of herself in that way.
Didn’t she understand she would be his wife? A husband
had
the right to buy gifts for his wife.

Tala twisted her arm, fighting the tight grasp of his fingers. She would not stoop to arguing with him in public. Shamefaced, she gathered Eloya’s gown in her fists and ran from Edon before either of them could publicly embarrass themselves further.

As she dodged among the crowds, Vikings and Mercians alike, she heard Edon shout her name and knew that he would follow her. The issue between them was honor.

But in the clear light of day there was none to be had. She had betrayed her people so that she could enjoy the pleasures of the flesh in the Wolf of Warwick’s bed.

Now she saw what she had done for what it was.

Desperate for a place of sanctuary, Tala stood on the apex of Warwick Hill, needing the one thing she could never find within these walls: the solace of her glen, her spring and the healing waters of Leam—balm for her troubled soul.

No wonder the Lady of the Lake refused to answer her urgent prayers. She must have known the wickedness Tala harbored in her heart and the lust she bore a Viking jarl.

The troop of mummers arrived well before midday. All work in the shire seemed to have stopped completely with their arrival. Inside the palisade walls the ranks swelled to an immense crowd. Rig had no idea where all these people had come from. Nor had he realized that market day in the shire would cause him so much grief.

Lord Edon was in a rare mood, as wildly angry as his namesake the wolf, and the people of Warwick sensed this. He prowled the crowd like the dangerous predator, hunting the missing princess.

Tala had vanished into thin air. Rig had with his own eyes seen the princess of Leam disappear. One minute she had been standing at the top of the hill, the next she had
bent down and grasped a handful of dust and blown it to the four winds.

Rig was not the only Viking who had witnessed her skillful spell casting. Thorulf and Maynard had also harkened to Edon’s shout to stop the woman and had given chase with him through the crowd.

They had closed in upon her when she stopped running—on the peak of the raised motte. There she had blown dust into their eyes and blinded all of them, conjuring up a great whirlwind. Perhaps she
was
a witch, Rig thought. Grains of sand still stung his eyes, and he had not caught so much as a glimpse of her skirts since.

Edon strode across the ward to where Rig stood, rubbing his irritated eyes in dismay. He did not believe in spells, Tala must be hiding somewhere!

“No one has seen her go out the gates,” Edon snarled. He trusted Maynard’s guards on duty there. They were good men, reliable and true, not given to drink. If they said the princess of Leam had not walked out the gates of Warwick then she hadn’t. “Have the grounds been thoroughly searched?”

“Aye,” Rig answered. It had been done.

“Keep searching. Don’t stop until she’s found.”

What he would do with her when he found her was the question. Edon stalked into the keep, prowling up the steps to the second floor with a heavy, telling tread. Eloya and Rebecca looked up at him when he came into the upper hall. Both gathered their sewing and fled out of sight to Eloya’s chamber.

Distraught, Edon poured himself a goblet of wine and stood consuming it, quenching his raging thirst. “Well?” he demanded when he had slammed the silver cup back onto the board and turned to find Blind Theo before him.

“She does not wish to be found, Wolf,” Theo said bluntly.

“Why?” Edon scowled. It was a wasted expression, for
Theo could not see the anger suffusing Edon’s hurt face. Where had Tala gone? Why did she hide from him? When would she come back, and what would he do if she did not?

“You must consider this a time for licking one’s wounds,” Theo advised. “Someone offended the princess. I sense it was a look she was given, though I cannot be certain. Her status is at issue and she is troubled. She will surface before nightfall.”