Loveweaver (19 page)

He heaved heavy breath into her hair, lingered as he seemed to recollect his strength. “You heal me. Make me whole.” His words came low and thick. Slick warmth slipped away and with his free hand, he swung her up into his arms. “Hold to me, love.” Llyrica clung to his neck, received a kiss. “You are as light as silk and I will carry you to the loft.”

Llyrica’s eyes fluttered closed as she rested her head on his shoulder. Male strength enveloped her, filled a lack, unrecognized until now.
I love the sleepwalker, would truly be his wife.

But doubt burst in as he carried her to the top, a rude intrusion on the after-bliss of passion.
I cannot build a life on night liaisons with half of a man.
This was also StoneHeart, who did not want her, had shunned her, resenting the trick wedding. This was a man of duality, a dubious future. And Llyrica herself was guilty of duplicity.

Slayde did not know they shared the same enemy, and she dare not tell him. She knew well his single-mindedness in his campaign against Haesten. If StoneHeart knew she was the warlord’s much-searched-for daughter, he would use her to his advantage, a hostage for negotiation. Nay, Llyrica would not meet her father as a pawn in a military action. She must be the first to confront Haesten with truth of it and once done, she would leave her father’s fate to StoneHeart. Llyrica could not think of that now, feared the consequences of a battle she would soon witness.

“You tremble, Llyrica,” the sleepwalker said, almost to the top of the ladder. “Let me warm you.”

Oh, such troubling thoughts would be banished for the night, exchanged for the forgetfulness found in the sleepwalker’s arms.

Chapter XI
 

On you I make my mark; you will always belong to me.

No matter where you go, you take my legacy.

To hide or to run is an impossibility.

Only revealing the truth will finally set you free.
 

Once uploft among a clutter of yarn, Slayde laid Llyrica on the pallet and stretched out beside her. An irony, a woman had quite taken over his room, was at home enough to pull of her cemes with shy immodesty and toss it aside. A night breeze, a scent of gathering dew and a silver shaft of moonlight paid visit through the window.

StoneHeart was sure of it. Llyrica had not guessed that he was no longer the sleepwalker, had not been since they had sealed their marriage on a bed of exotic fabric. Byrnstan was right. She had bound the two halves of the man into one. Slayde remembered it all, from his nightly searches for soft places to sleep, to finding Llyrica behind the loom. At first he damned the weakness of his vulnerable self. Under the guise of a mental sickness, he was a sentimental gull who gave in to the need for affection and the wiles of the soft vixen. Wretched battles waged within him, surpassing even those instigated by Ceolmund’s memory. Finally, a month of lying awake, desiring Llyrica’s solace and soft body, wrought a simple solution, one he was disciplined enough to act upon. He would be the StoneHeart by day, impeccably determined, relentlessly harder, ruthless in his duty. By night, he would be the sleepwalker that Llyrica knew, at liberty to woo his wife, be gentle, expressive, allow laughter perhaps. He could keep the two men separate, pay the price of a ruined life if he did not. By giving only half of his heart to her, he left the other to fight a war and maintain the reputation of the StoneHeart.

A shiver, soft cool flesh, a lilting sigh, Llyrica shifted under his arm. He took a long look at her body bathed in candlelight before he pulled a blanket over them.

Do not come soon too soon, Byrnstan. I need time to know her.

He rolled to his side, propped his head in his hand to gaze down at her perfect face, framed in a disarray of pale hair. A momentary distraction, a ray of moonlight picked out the row of tablets on Llyrica’s loom, which stretched between two benches near the curved stone wall. Solitary craft, this weaving was performed by a beautiful creature taken to hiding behind looms and hooded capes. With a detailed look, he saw a patterned braid, the StoneHeart's design.  He pondered why she yet wove it. The sight of it was an intrusive reminder of military tunicas, Vikings and the Songweaver’s influence in war and love. Unwarranted, thoughts of Haesten came to the fore and suspicions reared anew about why the warlord’s rings had been in Llyrica’s possession. StoneHeart might demand to know, but the sleepwalker would not care.

“What are you thinking, little fox?” He asked. An innocuous question, meant on many levels. “Tell me everything. Your secrets are safe with me.”

She stirred warmly and giggled, a youthful sound. “I am thinking how you have shown me that ladders are for more than climbing.” Then a frown, a fading of mirth, though aqua eyes remained bright. “I think much on my Broder and wonder where he has gone to. He may be hurt somewhere, or lost. Byrnstan says he will help me look for him again.”

“I will help. We will look until we find your brother and you are reunited with him.”

Her smile granted him her gratitude. “It must be a comfort to you, knowing that your own brother, little Elfric is safe with your mother.”

Slayde was free to make an admission, though the price was to acknowledge regret. “I see comfort where before I did not. Elfric will know my mother’s soft touch ...”

“Though
you
did not.” Llyrica quickly lifted her fingers to his brow, smoothed it with her thumb. “Be at ease.” Longings of lost years choked Slayde, awakened, then soothed by Llyrica’s caress. She further calmed him with her sweet hum of an evocative melody. A reconciliation with his mother almost seemed possible, and so too, a closer bond with his little brother.

He swallowed hard, moderated his voice. “I can think of it now and know there is yet time to make amends. Judith has Elfric to tend as she was not allowed to tend me. She will right the wrongs Ceolmund did her. She will see that Elfric may choose what kind of man he wants to be.” Slayde felt Ceolmund roll over in his cairn, so hastened to change the subject. He caught Llyrica’s hand, kissed her knuckles, then pressed her palm to his heart. “But what of your mother and father? Have you also other kin?”

Her tune ended. “Mother has been dead for twelve years. Soso yet lives.” Evasive eyes replaced candid, and she looked to continue, but then did not.

“What of your father? You made mention that you and Broder had grown up without.” Silence.  “I will not press, if it pains you to speak of it.”

“There is pain, but it was Mother’s. I remember a man standing over her with a giant fist.” She inhaled deeply, let out a long sigh and again met Slayde’s gaze. “My father was a much-feared, wife beater. Mother escaped from him with baby Broder and me, with just the clothes on our backs and a few weavers’ tools She took us on a long and secret journey across a sea to Hedeby. I have no memory of it. We came to live with Solvieg, mother’s sister that father did not know of.”

Slayde damned the man, damned fathers in general and tucked Llyrica closer. “And there you hid?”

“Aye, and Mother, too. Though father should have thought us dead. Solveig told me that before Mother ran off with us, she set fire to our house, so that upon his return from his raiding, he would find nothing but ash.”

“You think that he did not believe it?”

“In the beginning, Mother needed to be sure that we were safe. She saw to it that no one knew we yet lived. Then the first man came through town, asking questions, offering rewards. Mother hid in a chest and I trembled behind the loom, ere father’s searcher discover us and steal us back.”

“I do not think your brother hid behind a loom or stayed out of sight. You have spoken of him as a wild boy.”

  By the fleeting reflection of moonlight, Llyrica’s bright smile flashed. “Broder would never stay in the hut, so he did not hide. Solvieg warned him that a black devil would come burn out his tongue if he ever told a soul he had a sister. Later I told him I preferred my life behind the loom. Indeed, since I knew no other it was not a lie when I begged him promise not to reveal it. I loved him too well, indulged him, I think, to fill the lack his father left, and ease the guilt over my deception. But Broder never said a word and was never told of father, lest he run off to find him. We let Broder believe his father long dead.”

“Do you think your father is still alive?”

“Indeed he is. Men have come to Hedeby asking questions on his behalf, still offering bounties, even unto recently. It has seemed to Soso and me that he is as determined as ever to find us. But fortunately, a hideous loomstress and a wayward man-child did not fit the description of the family that Hae ... that he searches for.” Her eyes flicked away briefly at her odd slip of the tongue.

Slayde gave it a cursory notice, set it aside.

The sleepwalker bade StoneHeart be still from further questions, reminded him that love ruled his nights with Llyrica. “You need hide no longer. I will keep you safe from him and from all harm.” He lay his head down and enfolded her soft form in his arms, held at bay the new quickening in his loins.

The candle came to its end, its light snuffed out and replaced by the moon’s. A pale shaft slanted through the window, a gentle illumination and bearer of illusions. Slayde gave himself to it, drifted with Llyrica in the loft. He envisioned a simple civilian life married to a Danish loomstress. He pictured a home for creative endeavors, long visits from Judith and Elfric, and the conception and nurturing of one or two children. Llyrica would teach him what to do. This life lay on the far side of the battle at Fortress Lea.

The moon moved in time, its angle of light changed and diminished, leaving the room in hazy blackness. Llyrica stirred. “Are you asleep?”

“Not yet.” His blissful thoughts of impossibilities ended, but praise God, he still had the little fox in his embrace. A sweet consolation prize. “I will find no sleep until I have kissed you goodnight. From your lips to your toes.”

To the sounds of her false protests, Slayde peeled back the blanket and began at her mouth, subjecting each morsel of her supple flesh to his sensuous sampling. He turned her over and started again at the nape of her neck, journeyed the landscape of her form until he had kissed every inch of her. He heard someone outside, Byrnstan for sure, come to lead him away. A last taste, a kiss of her toes, and Llyrica wriggled with a sigh.

What is this? An odd mark on the heel of her left foot.
Slayde squinted in the poor light to make out the dark design. It came into focus. Nay, it could not be! But StoneHeart saw it now with shocking clarity. A tattoo. The rune Hagalaz, the letter H, in a unique form, identified on the rings found in Llyrica’s money purse. Haesten’s insignia, the same it was said he put on all the children of his many marriages, and all of his possessions. Slayde’s lips yet at Llyrica’s foot, this startling revelation and its ramifications immobilized him. He held his breath, collected his suspicions. The pieces fit. She was the daughter of Haesten, StoneHeart’s Viking adversary.

Upon hearing the door to his stone house open, he must finally move, easing his way up Llyrica’s body to pull her close. Byrnstan climbed the ladder.

Slayde struggled to act unaffected. “A wondrous goodnight, Sweet Softness.” He pressed a final kiss to his wife’s lush mouth. Byrnstan pulled on the sleepwalker’s foot and his arm, gave quiet commands and helped him to his feet and down the ladder. The priest fed Slayde’s legs into his linen brecs and tied them at the waist. Byrnstan would not know he led StoneHeart, not the sleepwalker, out into the predawn hour.

Llyrica’s warmth left behind, Slayde’s goosefleshed-body rebelled against the cool air as he crossed the dark garrison yards, damp soil beneath his bare soles. The chill helped in the transformation though, turning sleepwalker back to StoneHeart. Day was about to begin and he need ponder why Llyrica withheld the truth about her father’s identity. Aye, escape from Xanthus had set her out, but Slayde did not think she arbitrarily chose to travel for three days in a barrel. Closer and safer destinations could be had from Hedeby than to the Great Isle. The sleepwalker would deny that his silken bride harbored a secret motive, that it was other than chance that brought her within miles of the father she feared. But StoneHeart did not doubt she acted deliberately. And he now possessed a secret of his own, an unexpected new weapon against his enemy.

Slayde would keep Llyrica safe, at all costs. But Haesten would bend when StoneHeart informed him that his long-hidden daughter was found.

“Hail, there, Songweaver’s husband! My baby grew an inch after I sewed the braid on her tunica!” The woman held the child aloft for Slayde to see as he passed. From the corner of his eye, he noted the design, a pastel and miniature version of that on his tunica. His own garment, yet black as the first day he had donned it, made him recognizable from even great distances. StoneHeart had never again worn the old tunica. 

The mother beside the first, lifted her small boy, also for Slayde’s benefit. “My Hewson, here, got over his cough after I applied the braid!”

“StoneHeart! I am sold out of braid from just this morn!” the merchant called out from a stall. “When might I get more from the Songweaver?”

“Tell me also!” Another man waved from his hut of goods. “The women of London clamor for more of your wife’s craft and I am to make a small fortune!” 

Vendors and shoppers accosted Slayde from both sides of the market street as he made his way toward Athelswith’s house. He reacted with stony disregard, thinking their enthusiasm was grossly misplaced. Few mentioned the battle he was about to fight on their behalf. At least their fervor about the baby braids quieted the talk of love spells.

Ailwin accompanied him under Slayde’s pretence that they have a horn of stout ale in town before embarking on his campaign the next day. But StoneHeart required his second’s attendance as his longtime judge of male behavior. Slayde would not betray himself during this final visit with Llyrica. Byrnstan, on the other hand, busy at the garrison listening to last minute confessions, would not be able to make appeal to StoneHeart’s weaknesses. 

“What do you make of it, StoneHeart?” Ailwin asked. “Her braids saw us through ten and score victories at sea. The garrison hums with talk of it.” With a look back, he gestured to the rabble behind them. “Now the townspeople say her braids make colicky babies laugh, birthmarks fade and sickly appetites improve.”