Lady of the Lake (17 page)

Tala was old enough to have heard many of his most persuasive points argued before. She wasn’t enthralled by hearing her legendary Lady of the Lake transmigrate from Branwyn to blessed Saint Brigid. Nonetheless, she knew that the bishop played to the desires of the people, granting them a boon. The cult of the virgins would continue, reborn under the auspices of a saint, blessed by association with the Holy Mother of God.

These Christians assimilated everything. All pagan celebrations were now sacred days drawn into the church rituals. To become a Christian all one had to do was say aye to the Lord and be baptized.

With the crowd whipped to a fervor, Bishop Nels called upon the priests and monks of Evesham Abbey to assist him in conducting baptisms in the river Avon.

For Tala, the immersion in the tepid Avon seemed anticlimatic. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was trapped in a bad dream from which there was no waking.

King Alfred stood waist deep in the water, acting as godfather to Edon, Venn and Tala.

Edon was dunked first and came out renamed John. Venn came up sputtering and choking on a mouthful of water, reborn as Samuel. Tala would just as soon have stayed under and floated away to her lady’s bower in the waterweeds. She was lifted from the watery grave not even fighting the sting of fluid saturating her airways. King Alfred pounded her on her back and named her Mary, then presented them each with a golden crucifix.

Alfred turned to welcome the next convert as Tala dashed river water out of her eyes. The current tugged on her knees. A shiver crossed her shoulders. She looked at the horizon and gave thanks that sundown had come. Finally, this awful, interminable day was nearly over.

Edon caught hold of her wrist and without a word began pulling her toward the Avon’s muddy bank. His grip allowed her only one hand to press back the weight of her wet hair from her face. She plucked at her penitent’s robe, trying to lift it off her breasts as Edon hauled her to the shore.

The sun dipping to the horizon turned into another ominous, heat-scorched sunset—bloodred and angry. When Tala looked down to pull on the wet cloth, she could see her nipples and the curls between her thighs. She shivered, cold in spite of the blistering heat.

Edon yanked harder on her arm, then looked over his shoulder to see what was holding her back. He growled out a thoroughly unchristian curse, pulling her out of the water completely.

The wet shroud was plastered to her legs and clung to her hips and belly. A vein throbbed maddeningly in his forehead. Edon thought she may as well have come down to the river to be baptized as she’d walked into his hall, flaunting her body before the king and his court—naked.

He’d had enough. Edon stopped in the mud beside the river and jerked his tunic off. Growling, he dragged the
garment roughly over Tala’s head, stuffing her arms inside the sleeves. Last, he gave the hem of his garment a violent tug, pulling it down to cover the tops of her thighs. Satisfied, he grabbed her wrist and marched resolutely up the hill to Warwick.

The keep was ominously quiet. Eloya and Rebecca looked up from their sewing, dismayed as Edon and Tala entered the hall drenched to the skin. Rashid, Theo and Eli stood at the window, dispassionate observers of the spectacle of conversion. They had chosen to remain outcasts, committed to their individual beliefs.

Driven to execute some act of vengeance to reclaim authority within his own domain, Edon pulled on Tala across the hall behind him. He shoved open the door to his chamber, dragged her inside and shut it behind them.

Time had come for a reckoning.

The chamber was nearly dark, for the red sunset was fading fast. No lamps or candles burned. Tala saw in a glance that Eloya’s efficient army of servants had swept through the chamber. The bed was sheeted, returned to its normal place against the stone wall, and the smell of sex and lust was gone.

Tala began carefully peeling off Edon’s tunic. She laid the soaked garment on the window ledge, spreading it out to dry.

Then she stepped away from the window and caught up a handful of her wet, shapeless penitent’s robe.

“Don’t go any further,” Edon warned.

He let the lid to his sea chest fall open with a bang. Tala’s fingers unintentionally tightened on the cotton in her hands. Edon looked down at her bare ankles. Then he slapped the scabbard he held in his right hand against his leg. “I said stop right there!”

Tala let go of the cloth. It fell into place again, covering her feet. She didn’t know what to do with her hands so
she just let them hang at her sides. She didn’t say a word. Neither did he.

He watched her breasts rise and fall, lifting the gossamer cloth away from her ribs and stomach. He looked long and intently at the wet fabric that stuck to her thighs and outlined the cleft between them. She watched his shoulders flex as he folded the tongue of the belt up to the buckle, doubling the strap. He stretched the belt between his hands, mentally measuring its length, then gripped the buckle firmly.

Then, satisfied with his preparations, he looked at her. “What was the last thing I told you before you went out the door, Princess?”

Tala thrust out her chin. “You said if I opened the door and walked out naked, spell or no spell, that I would be one very sorry princess.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’s a start. Come here and kneel down beside the bed. You don’t need to lift your skirt. You’re as good as naked with that wet cloth clinging to you.”

“What happens if I say no?”

“Say no and find out,” he urged in a dire tone.

“Edon, I didn’t know the king was out there.”

“It makes no difference to me what you knew. This is not between your king and you. It is between us. I will be obeyed and respected in my house.”

Tala nodded her head slightly. That was the first commandment of life. She had punished her brother and her sisters for defying her, used a strap—not unlike the one Edon held—on both Venn and Gwynnth. For the most part, they were obedient and loving, curious children. When they were willful or deliberately careless she carried out her parental duty. A necessary whipping hadn’t harmed them. But these thoughts were only making her remember the terrible pain of losing them.

Alfred had taken the girls from her without compassion? She hadn’t had time to explain to them what brought about the king’s decision. He hadn’t even allowed Tala to embrace or tell the girls how much she loved them, that she would always love them. But kings and distance and time couldn’t stop love or end it.

Edon ground his teeth at the silent tears that ran down her cheeks and dripped onto the sackcloth. She brought her left hand to her face and wiped away a stream, sniffed deeply and nodded again.

“Very well,” she said, and lifted her proud chin once more as she moved forward. She would not beg or grovel before him. She did intend to have her say, even if he beat her more for it. “I did not strut into a crowded hall, showing myself to every man and woman present, to shame you or embarrass you.”

“So what was your intention, lady? Your actions as much as said that you would never be ruled by me, but only by your pride and vanity. That is the real issue between us. The reason why you have left me no recourse except to beat you.”

He’d hit the mark with those words. It had been her pride and injured vanity that had driven her out that door, more the fool she.

“I am accustomed to being the final authority in Leam, my lord.” She looked down at his feet. “I find it difficult to defer to the will of another.”

It was a wonder that Edon didn’t strangle her right then. He shouted at her, “And look what that has cost you! Had you worked with your king, done the things he asked you to do, would your sisters have been summarily taken from you today?”

Tala gulped as she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do know, Tala.” Edon let his temper have full reign. It was time the angry words were said. Time
she came to grips with true authority. “Don’t play games with words. I won’t stand for that! Who rules this land?”

“The king.” She granted that admission and immediately couched it with a justification. “But it was his duty to protect me and my sisters so that our way of life could continue. Instead, he offered my people’s land to a Viking overlord on the promise of marriage in Alfred’s church. Your motives are as base and secretive as Alfred’s.”

“My motives have always been stated and open, Tala. I wanted Leam from the first moment I spied it.”

“That is your way…the Viking way. You take—with no thought given to whom what you covet truly belongs. It is not the Christian motto Do Unto Others that Viking sons are taught in infancy, it is Take From Others Before They Take From You! You could have let me be, with my family and my people, in our forest and at peace.”

Affronted, Edon countered, “Lady, it was you who came out of the forest spying. You who came to my hall delivering ultimatums. You who made yourself a nuisance with your petitions of redress to two kings, focusing all attention upon what was happening in the peaceful shire of Warwick. A good man was sent here to rule, Harald Jorgensson. I have proof from your people and mine that he was a fair and compassionate overlord, allowing Mercians and Danes to coexist equitably. You stirred up the waters of rebellion and distrust by slaughtering my sister’s son, the nephew of my king at your blood sacrifice on Lughnasa.”

“That’s a lie!” Tala shouted back.

“It is not!” Edon forced her to yield precious ground as he backed her into the chamber’s stone corner with his flaring temper. “Why else would two kings from different realms have taken such interest in the doings of a small sect of Celtic pagans?”

“Because they covet this land.”

“No! Edon shouted at the top of his voice. “Because
one king, the new convert, was convinced that the beliefs he now holds dear were being insulted deep in the woodlands of his frontier. Guthrum believes your rituals are devil worship. Blood sacrifice of another human being is the worst evil in a world that holds each human life as sacred as God himself.”

“We had nothing to do with Jarl Harald Jorgensson’s death!” Tala insisted furiously. “Who accuses us of such a thing?”

“That is irrelevant, Tala. The point is the kings believe your ancient rituals prevail, and I know that you continue to make sacrifices at the lake in Arden Wood.”

“You know nothing of the kind,” she argued heatedly.

“Then tell me where your golden torque is this very moment.”

Edon let his words hang in the throbbing air between them, knowing full well she would not answer with anything that came near the truth. Then he told her exactly where the golden torque was.

“It is at the bottom of Black Lake, because you made an offering of the most sacred and valuable possession you had to the Lady of the Lake. Isn’t it?”

Shaken by his acumen, Tala gasped, “How do you know that?”

Her words and expression confirmed Edon’s suspicion. Heaven help her if Embla Silver Throat proved right in her accusation of how Harald had died. For Edon would hold all of the druids and their priestesses responsible for his nephew’s life. The mystery was slowly beginning to unravel, though the finger of guilt pointed not in the direction he had thought it would.

“How I know things isn’t the issue, lady. Your cupidity is.”

“Cupidity! The only lust between us is yours, Wolf of Warwick! Make no mistake, that bond is severed. Now
that I see you for what you are, all affairs between us are over. I will have nothing further to do with you.”

“I’m talking bloodlust, lady. Harald Jorgensson was my kinsman, and if you had anything to do with his disappearance or the taking of his life, I will hold you accountable.”

“You fool.” Tala shook her head and said the last civil words she ever intended to speak to the Wolf of Warwick for the rest of her life. “If you would but search your own holding, you would know what became of Harald Jorgensson. My people and I are innocent of his blood.”

“Best you hope the balance of my investigation proves that true, Tala ap Griffin. Your pretty denial changes nothing. As to affairs between you and me, we are to be married on Lammas, two days hence. All lands and properties that you claim in your brother’s name will, at the moment of our marriage, become mine to hold and dispose of as I see fit.”

“You will have to drag me screaming and kicking to the altar, Viking,” Tala promised.

“I don’t think that will be as difficult to accomplish as you predict.” Edon cracked the leather belt against his leg. “One way or another you will learn to submit to a higher authority. If force is the only language you can understand, then I will use force ruthlessly against you.”

“If you touch me now, I will never forgive you, Viking.”

“Princess, if I didn’t use force now, I would never forgive myself. Your willful and deliberate manipulations have pushed both of us to that impasse. Believe me, you will think long and hard about the consequences of your thoughtlessness in the future.”

Tala put her shoulder blades to the cold wall at her back, staring at him in the twilight, her head moving ever so slightly in a negating motion. Her racing heart told her to say
Edon, don’t,
but her uncompromising pride wouldn’t
allow the petition out of her locked throat. She was a princess of Learn,
a violated virgin priestess of the Lady of the Lake.

She knew what dangers he deliberately courted by tempting the gods in raising his hand against her. All reason commanded that she warn him of the danger. Yet the Ceremony of Baptism they had just been through had mockingly proclaimed that her gods were dead. Christ was now almighty. Why should she waste her breath warning him of pagan dangers he wouldn’t believe?

“Then do it, Viking. Take your vengeance for my thoughtless insult against you. The sooner you have done with it, the sooner I may be quit of you forever.”

“Therein lies the gravest error in your thinking, Princess. You will not be quit of me until the vows of marriage spoken between us have been fulfilled.” With those words, Edon tremulously raised the strap in his hand, not knowing what to do next. She had left him no other alternative with her stubborn refusal to yield to his authority.