Lady of the Lake (18 page)

T
he lightning struck without warning. In one heartbeat, the brilliant bolt of light zigzagged across the stones at the top of the window, jumped to the belt buckle in Edon’s hand and shot across the room, exploding into the iron bolts affixed to the hinges on the oak door.

The seasoned oak burst into flame. Edon flew across the room, thrown against the stone wall, and sank in a heap. His scabbard belt ignited midair and fell to the floor. Tala slammed into the corner as the deafening clap of thunder shook the roof, walls and floor of the keep.

An irreverent thought flashed in her mind:
If this is a sign from the gods, it is too little and too late. The damage has been done hours ago…by the king of Wessex…not the Wolf of Warwick!

Across the room, Edon’s black hair spiked around his head like the ruff of an indignant cock. Tala blinked again and again to clear her blurred sight, and nothing changed. Edon didn’t move. The acrid smell of burning hair and flesh didn’t stop stinging Tala’s nose.

The door burst open. Eli rushed in, yelling, “Lord Edon!” He saw Edon crumpled before the open window, Tala in the corner and the flaming belt on the floor in between.

The servant grabbed the pitcher of water from the sideboard and threw its contents on the fire. That was when he saw the flames near the iron studs on the oak door. He yelled, “Fire, fire, fire!”

Tala shielded her eyes with her hand. Rashid ran into the room, saw Edon and dropped to his side. Eli grabbed the pitcher of water and dashed its contents at the burning door. Rig brought his axe and hacked at the smoldering wood. Eli threw a bowl of water at Edon’s face, and Rashid slapped his cheeks. His red skin turned white where the blows struck.

Somehow Tala got her arms and legs to work. She crawled to where Rashid had stretched out Edon’s long body. His lids were half-open but his blue eyes had rolled up into his head. Rashid pressed his ear to Edon’s naked chest. He sat back abruptly, made a hard fist and slammed it with all his might into Edon’s breastbone. Then he bent and listened for a heartbeat.

“Edon!” Tala gulped. An irrational fear took hold of her, telling her Edon was dead. The gods had proved once more why it was taboo to touch a sacred princess of Leam. Rashid drove his fist into Edon’s chest again, a violent blow that made the jarl’s flaccid arms bounce off the floor.

“Edon!” Tala grasped his ears and shook his head.
“Edon!”

She looked at Rashid. The Persian met her eyes resignedly. “I can do nothing, Princess. He is gone.”

“No!” Tala shouted, shoving the Persian away. “Don’t you dare hit him again. You’re killing him! Edon, Edon!” She threw herself over Edon to protect him, to love him, to shake him back to life. “Edon!”

“Princess,” Rashid said softly, grasping her shoulders, trying to pull her back.

“No!” Tala gathered Edon to her, lifting his head and shoulders from the floor. She wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could. She rocked him back and forth,
crooning in his ear, kissing his face, crying, frantic to keep him with her. She kissed his soft lips and tried to breathe her life into his, blowing her breath into his lungs. “Edon, please. You can’t leave me. I have nothing left but you! I love you. Edon, please.”

His warm body remained slack in her arms. His head rolled back, his jaw lax, his blue tongue lifeless and inert inside the mouth that she loved so much to kiss. By all the gods of the earth, she loved him. She could not lose him!

Rashid cast a concerned look at Rig and Eli, and the three of them, loyal men who themselves loved Edon as much as life, stood back, allowing the princess of Leam privacy to grieve.

Lady Eloya pushed her way through the gathering crowd and bent to wrap a warm shawl around the princess’s pale shoulders. She hugged her and kissed the top of the Tala’s head, then turned and, with tears filling her eyes, went to break the sad news to Theo and Rebecca.

Tala heard the winds howl and scream as they raged through the keep. She lifted her cheek from Edon’s brow, turning to her inner sight for answers. Thunder rocked the heavens from Warwick to the Citadel of Glass at Black Lake.

In a vision swimming before her eyes, Tala saw Tegwin standing at the high altar, his blackthorn staff raised to the heavens. He summoned all the demons from the other-world with the chant of an ancient and powerful curse, bidding them come forth in wind and thunder and wreak their vengeance upon Leam’s enemies.

“Tegwin, no!” Tala screamed. “No! I forbid it! Branwyn, I command you, stop Tegwin! Give Edon back to me! This man is mine. I have chosen him. I love him! Give him back. You cannot take him from me!”

She threw out her hand, envisioning it knocking the druid’s
blackthorn staff out of his grasp. The howling wind assaulting Warwick abated.

Edon took a breath.

Tala wrapped him tightly in her arms, rocking him gently back and forth, crooning a soft song of love in his ear, whispering her litany of thanksgiving. He was alive. The Wolf of Warwick lived.

Rashid and Rig were the first to realize the change. Knowing a miracle had ruptured the cosmos, Rig fell to his knees and fervently prayed. Rashid called to Eli to help him move Edon. They took him from Tala’s arms and laid him on the bed, covering him quickly with a warm blanket.

Oblivious to her wet clothes, Tala crawled onto the bed to be with Edon, to touch him and silently celebrate his return to life. There she stayed until King Alfred and his priests arrived.

“You must come with me, Princess,” Lady Eloya insisted then. She tightened the shawl around Tala’s shoulders and drew her off the bed. “The danger is past. Edon will be all right now. Rashid will protect him. I will protect you. You are safe now. Come along, my child.”

Somehow Eloya managed to keep the princess from making eye contact with the king. The fury in the princess’s eyes was a sight to behold—terrifying really. Only the powers in the heavens knew what sort of wrath the princess of Leam was capable of at that moment. Eloya guided her through the crowded hall and into her own chamber. She told Olga to fetch her towels and lotions. Anastacia was sent to bring clean clothes and shoes. Eloya took up a brush and began to smooth the tangles out of the princess’s hair.

Confused, Rebecca paced the floor before the wide, north-facing window in Eloya’s room, racking her baby to quiet it after the fierce and sudden storm. “There are clouds high to the north. For all the wind and thunder, there has not been a drop of rain. Perhaps it will come.”

“No.” Tala shook her head. “The storm is over. There will be no rain in Warwick.” Not before her brother gave his blood to the land to renew it. The die was cast. She had been a fool to doubt the power of the gods. And ten times more a fool to question their existence.

“How do you know?” Rebecca asked, stopping to pat Thomas’s back and look at the princess.

“I just know,” she answered.

“Let us talk about something else,” Eloya said, giving Rebecca a telling look.

The woman nodded and came to Tala, stretching out her arms. “Would you like to hold Thomas, Tala? He’s quiet now. I think he might even go to sleep.”

“Oh, yes.” Tala exhaled in relief.

She carefully gathered the baby up and rocked him much the same way she had comforted and reassured Edon, letting him know that she forgave him. She was going to miss her family, but now she knew she would someday have them back. Just as she had Edon back. Alfred would come to his senses.

When the princess’s hair was neatly restored to order and the baby put to bed, Lady Eloya sent the others out of the room. “See to supper, Rebecca. It has been a very long and trying day. The men need to eat. Do what you can.”

After the door closed, Eloya took up a fine kirtle, saying, “Now, let’s get you dressed in something that suits your station. You are the Jarl of Warwick’s woman.”

“I can do it, Eloya,” Tala said, her confidence returning with each moment that passed. “I’m not helpless. I’ve been fending for myself since I was a child.”

“Do you want me to leave you, Princess?”

“No, of course not. I just don’t want you to think you have to serve me. I can do very well for myself.” Tala took the kirtle in hand and examined it. “This is new?”

“Yes, Rebecca and I just made it for you. We were hoping to have it finished before your wedding.”

“Oh,” Tala said, touched by the women’s generosity. “Thank you. I could save it until then. This robe is dry now. Perhaps I could just put a surcoat over it. That would work, wouldn’t it?”

“I want to throw that rag away,” Eloya said plainly. “It is only fit for rags.”

“It is rather crude, isn’t it?” Tala tugged at the shape-less sack. Then she took it off, handed it to Eloya and drew the soft linen kirtle onto her arms. The sleeves were closely fitted. A soft ribbon closed the kirtle above her breasts. The long skirt flowed wide at her ankles. “Oh, this is much better. I will tell Rebecca how much I appreciate it.”

Eloya folded the damp, muddy baptismal robe and handed Tala an outer gown of russet-colored samite. The rich cloth suited the princess, bringing color to her cheeks. Her soft boots had been cleaned and were perfect with the gown. Eloya was satisfied. She took the torque off Tala’s neck, made an adjustment to it, then put it back.

“We shall play this game the king of Wessex’s way, shall we, Princess Tala? You will wear the torque like this, hmm? The cross looks very pretty at your throat. Alfred does have exceptional taste in jewelry.”

“Despite what he has put me through this day, he is a good king,” Tala said as Eloya passed her a polished silver hand mirror to look at herself.

“Yes, I dare say his motives are better than most. He is human and there lies any man’s frailties. He ordered Edon to beat you, Princess.”

Tala paused to consider Eloya’s words. After a moment, she gave back the mirror as she shook her head very firmly. “No, Eloya, I know my cousin. As a king, Alfred is most often too humane. Maybe that is why I have gone to the lengths that I have to hold Leam for Venn. Alfred
would levy a fine. The beating must have been Edon’s idea, to bring me back to my senses. I had given up. Edon was right.”

Eloya looked into Tala’s brown eyes and saw that tenderness tempered the anger simmering inside her. She could have been a queen in her own right, but that was not to be. Eloya was not fooled; she thought Tala didn’t want the power she did have. Alfred was a lucky man, for Tala could have commanded her gods to strike him dead.

Tala looked up suddenly at Eloya, a small frown puckering her brow. “No,” she said very firmly. “I can’t do that, Eloya. The only thing I have ever been able to do is intercede. Sometimes they listen to me. Shall we go now and join the men?”

“If you are ready.” Eloya deferred to her.

“I want to see Edon.”

He was seated at the end of the table in a low-backed chair drawn up beside the high one, which had been given to Alfred. Edon was still pale and shaken. Two spots of color appeared on his cheeks when Tala came into the room. Rig immediately got up from the seat at Edon’s left side, surrendering the wolf-head chair to Tala.

“Fetch a cushion,” Edon told him. Before Tala reached his side, the cushion was in place on the wooden seat.

“So you will still cosset her?” King Alfred asked as he rose to his feet with the rest of the men as the ladies took their places at the table.

“Of course.” Edon bowed his head slightly to the king, then turned to take Tala’s hand and guide her to her seat. “She is to be my wife. I will cherish her all my days.”

High color stained Tala’s cheeks, and her eyes were downcast as Edon gripped her fingers and bent close to whisper in her ear. “I thought you were never coming out.”

Tala’s lips flexed at the corners, then she briefly looked
up at his eyes, saying, “But I had to come out and hear your men praise you for making me scream, lord.”

“Humph!” Edon coughed. He cast a quick look at Tala’s eyes and caught the loving twinkle just before it faded. “So much for seeking your forgiveness, eh?”

“You may seek it later,” Tala told him primly.

Edon delayed taking his seat until the king did. Then Alfred turned to Lady Eloya and engaged her in conversation. “What did you think of the strange lightning this eve, my lady? Have you seen such displays in your country?”

“A desert storm is liable to conjure anything, your majesty,” Eloya answered wisely. “Though I would rank this night’s display as unusual. That lightning went from one end of this hall to the other. It quite frightened the life out of me. Were you told we thought Lord Edon dead?”

“He looks quite hale to me.” Alfred studied Edon, then turned his scrutiny upon his kinswoman. He had an approving nod for her jewelry, worn as he specified, though he wasn’t fooled that she would ever be anything but a pagan in her heart. The old ways were too ingrained in her.

She was making a great effort to appear subdued, her wild hair coiled at her nape, her gown modest and comely. If the Viking jarl remained firm, Alfred thought Tala’s wildness could be tamed. “Did you think you were dead, Lord John?”

“No, of course not.” Edon scoffed at such an idea. “Although my chest hurts…here.” He put his left hand over his heart. His right hand, Tala saw, was bandaged. “I was stunned by the concussion. My ears have only just quit ringing.”

“And you, Mary?” Alfred turned to Tala, addressing her by her baptismal name, “Were you also affected by the bolt of lightning that broke the stone above the window?”

“It broke a stone?” Tala said, turning to Edon.

“That’s not exactly true,” the jarl interjected. “The stone had a flaw in it that I noticed when I inspected the keep the first time. I had the masons fit an iron bar across the top of the lintel before the carpenters hung the window frame. Lightning tends to gravitate toward iron.”

“Like a lodestone has drawing power?” Tala sought clarification. She searched his face for confirmation that he was truly recovered.

“Exactly,” Edon answered. “It’s the same principle.”

“I’m certain living on the highest hill in the shire must have something to do with it as well.” Alfred offered his own wry observation. “Had I been the one struck by lightning, I’d give consideration to building my home else-where and keep Warwick for defense.”