Loveweaver (25 page)

A dismaying thought struck Llyrica. Haesten and StoneHeart were equals in their animosity toward each other, were surrounded by myths both true and false. She strove to quiet this hatred that Broder had so quickly adopted. “There is naught to save me from! StoneHeart is - is my husband.”

The color red crawled up Broder’s neck to his face. He looked ready to erupt. “Thor’s blood! You have fallen to another man who weds his slave in jest! He is less than Xanthus, I vow!” Broder yanked at Llyrica’s arm and began hauling her toward the fortress. “Come with me lest he further sours your mind through his fiendish methods!”

“Let go of me and listen! What has turned
your
mind to such madness?” Llyrica twisted her arm against Broder’s grip, while the men who had accompanied him, closed around her to secure her escort to the gate. She heard Slayde and his men running up behind her.

“Haesten will know what to do, Llyrica!” Broder yelled at her. “You will see. He is my lord and commander and together we will rid you of StoneHeart!”

It pricked at Llyrica’s worst fear that her brother had fallen under the old warlord’s influence, and formed a bond. “Quit this, Broder! I have something to tell you about Hae ...” 

Slayde’s abrupt pull on Llyrica’s free arm jolted her, subjecting her to a brief tug of war between StoneHeart and Broder. Her brother lost his grasp on her and Slayde hurled her into Byrnstan’s arms, who quickly led her beyond the fray. Through a dizzying blur of bodies and clamor of shouts and drawn weapons, Llyrica saw Saxons and Vikings converge.

Great Lord, in center of it, standing but a rod apart, her brother and husband drew swords against each other! Men on each side looked to pair up, ready to exchange blows with the slightest crook of a finger.

“Hold!” StoneHeart ordered his men, freezing the Vikings, as well.

But Broder’s fury was unleashed. “I do Haesten’s bidding by striking you down!” He lunged with a swing of his blade.

Iron clashing against iron, Slayde blocked the blow as if it were naught. “He has done wrong to put a boy in his place. Why does the coward not show himself?” 

Llyrica knew at once that Slayde’s easy parry and insult heightened Broder’s ire. She cried out as her brother readied to attack again. Wrenching loose of Byrnstan’s hand, Llyrica broke through the wall of armed men, each a head taller than she. Reaching her brother, she clung to his weapon arm, found a hard-muscled warrior where a rascal had been. “Stay this assault, I pray you! And you, StoneHeart, put down!”

But Slayde kept his sword high, reached out with his other hand to quickly pull Llyrica to his side. Broder grimaced at StoneHeart’s move on his sister, lowered his blade but an inch.

Llyrica gasped for a breath. “We are reunited, brother. Be happy in this and see to reason with the rest!”

“I am Haesten’s loyal man and so shall find no contentment as long as his enemy lives. Nor will I rest while knowing you are under StoneHeart’s evil influence! His crimes are renowned. Mutilations of children and deviant ways with - with females ...”

A rumble sounded deep in Slayde’s chest. His men tensed further, swords gripped in tight fists. Llyrica held her palm out to stay them, still protecting her brother, still praying that he would listen to her. “My patience thins, Pup, to hear you spout such lies! You prove deaf and blind to all but Haesten’s rantings about StoneHeart when you should look to your own warlord’s bloody history. The man’s past is grievously violent and cruel ...”

“Not another word against him!” He straightened and looked to contain himself, though a vein pulsed at the base of his neck. “But prove you love me as you have always professed to do, and come with me now. If StoneHeart has not a hold on your mind, then be free of him.”

“’Tis not so simple as that. I beg you to abandon this folly with Haesten since he is to be put out of this place by StoneHeart’s army. Please come with me lest you are within those walls when Haesten is vanquished.”

Broder backed up a few steps as if he had been physically struck. His sword arm now hung limply at his side. “I will not leave him, though I am wounded of heart that you choose this Saxon demon over your brother.”

“You must understand! You are the one making the choice and it is an ill one, indeed. Look over my shoulder to StoneHeart’s army and know that Haesten will not win. I beg you again to abandon him.”

“I have promised my allegiance and am his to the death.”

Broder’s newfound, if misplaced, sense of purpose was unexpected, shocking. But Llyrica would not back down. “If you must return to him then do so with the message that StoneHeart has already given. Tell Haesten that his sixteen-year search is over. We have what he seeks.”

Slayde’s body jolted against hers. “Llyrica! Do not say another word. Not yet!”

“I will not be silenced.” She must disregard that Broder bristled with new rancor, seeing her in StoneHeart’s tightened grip. “Go, Broder! Report to Haesten that when he agrees to quit this fortress, we will let him see what was taken from him so long ago. He will know the price he paid for his cruelty. And so will you.”

Broder scowled. “You think to provoke him with empty, worthless words? He knows it is a lame trick and shrugs at them, hears them without concern.”

Llyrica scrambled for her mental footing. Broder seemed to know something of Haesten’s search. And if the warlord no longer cared for the loss of his children then her vengeance would be naught. Perhaps he needed another prod. “Then tell him this. From within the flames, the Songweaver has come.”

Confusion knitted Broder’s brow. He did not know their grandmother’s sobriquet or that Lyrica now claimed it, too. Again, he looked close to tears. “Flames?  Songweaver? Of what do you speak? More schemes of the StoneHeart, no doubt. What has become of you, sister? You are changed. Changed!” 

Llyrica wanted to scream to him that Haesten had broken Mother’s ribs, caused her slow death. But not here, in this dark mood, with this division between them. First she must make Broder see the foul man that Haesten was before she exposed her own deceit. She must keep her promise to Mother, pray that Broder would forgive her.

“I am not so changed as you! I still seek to save you from yourself. I pray you do as I heed.”

Broder straightened, thrust up his chin. “You are no longer my keeper, Llyrica. And you, StoneHeart. Know this is not finished.”

Slayde replied with vehement stare. “Indeed, not in the least! Go cool your head, boy, lest you lose it.”

Broder spun on his heel, an abrupt departure. Twenty Vikings, ripe for trouble, followed him.

“Tell him, Broder!” Frustration wove through Llyrica, intensified her need to see an end to this. Desperation told her she would sacrifice Broder’s love to see it done. “Tell Haesten the Songweaver has come to find
him
!”

The heat of the sun and men’s tempers exacted its toll. Sweat soaked StoneHeart’s tunica, trickled down his throbbing temples. He dispersed the warriors from the disastrous meeting with Llyrica’s brother, but Ailwin, Byrnstan and Eadwulf stayed close. His long legs led them toward camp while his mind roiled in conflict. Llyrica, flushed and silent, kept up beside him.

Overwhelming, untimely, the impulse to pull her into his arms nearly choked him. Indeed, he rubbed his breastbone, fought to suck in air. She needed comforting and assurances, things he could not offer her here on a battlefield, witnessed by Ailwin and hundreds of others. This sweet weakness for her was as real as Ceolmund had warned. It was a feeling that Slayde wanted to relish, tuck away for later when he could be alone with her. But now he thrust it aside, shrugged off his inability to remedy her trembling, calm her worry. Another emotion took its place, its seed planted last night when he arose from Llyrica’s soft embrace. Violence burgeoned in StoneHeart, a raw need to strike a man down, aggravated by Broder’s hate, Haesten’s indifference, and his mad dream to run off with a Viking in silk.
Spit blood
, but he deserved the life beyond this place, demanded a swift and simple end to Haesten after years under Ceolmund’s heel. God forgive these thoughts that father had fostered, that were so encouraged in a man.
Put a sword through your enemy’s heart, a tidy and final solution.
God forgive him, but it made sense. StoneHeart had killed before, for much less.

Byrnstan spoke first. “I have not understood a thing since yesterday, when Llyrica’s brother appeared at the fortress gate.”

“And odd that Haesten has yet to appear,” said Ailwin.

Slayde’s thumb stroked the pommel of his sword. “He bides his time, makes us wait. He thinks to humble us as if we are not worth dealing with.”

Eadwulf kept stride with Slayde. “Indeed, StoneHeart. But tell us why your wife has come here with the same offer to Haesten as the one you announced? What does it all mean?”

“Why would Haesten care if the Songweaver comes or not?” added Ailwin.

“You may ask it of me, Ailwin.” Llyrica stepped in front of him, her nose nearly to his chest, exhibiting the same foolish daring as pushing through to her brother’s side. “Cease talking of me as if I were elsewhere.”

Slayde caught Eadwulf’s look of surprise and Byrnstan’s smirk. Few confronted Ailwin, even StoneHeart himself. It was a throwback to Ceolmund, a reminder of intimidation.

Llyrica raised her chin. “I tire of your disdain for me and your opinion that I have no worth! Soon you will see that I have as much stake in this campaign as do you and perhaps more power.”

Ailwin looked down his nose at her. “I do not deem you of no worth in the world, wife of StoneHeart, just none among fighting men. The loom is more your place and perhaps the pallet ...”

Slayde clamped his hand on the back of Ailwin’s neck, the first time such a move was necessary. “Take care where your tongue treads lest you find it wrapped around my fist.”

Ailwin jerked loose, anger evident. He seemed to express a rivalry, a heightened resentment toward Slayde’s regard for Llyrica. “She says she has a stake here, StoneHeart, yet I judge it has little to do with anything other than her misguided brother! We waste time with him. And with her!”

“If he is misguided,” said Llyrica, livid, “’tis because he had no father, and as was pointed out to me, because I was too soft on him. But he has a father now, though he does not know it!”

“Llyrica, not yet,” Slayde warned. “We need discuss ...”

“Discuss what? That I have hidden from Haesten for sixteen years, defying the warlord’s efforts to find me? He would know my name, Ailwin, the Songweaver, since his wife, my mother, also wove spells into cloth. Yea, I am Haesten’s daughter and will lead you straight to him.”

Ailwin’s mouth gaped. Eadwulf stroked his sweaty, bald head.

Amusement borne of disbelief lightened Byrnstan’s face. “Good God, his daughter? Then Broder is his son. How has this come about?”

“One might say the trickster Loki had a hand in it, but I deem it fate.” Llyrica turned to the priest, her eyes alight with entreaty. “But Broder does not know upon whose door he has landed. Or that our mother hid me from Haesten, a cruel and abusive man. My brother must not find out, save from me.”

Slayde responded to her as she now glanced at him, a request for his help. “This announcement of Llyrica’s is to go no further than these ears, and I will consider it a treasonous act if it does. I must have your vows.” He awaited their assenting nods, used the time to form casual comments to hide his growing apprehension. “Our goal to give Haesten the boot has not changed, save Llyrica’s part in it. She claims he has sought her and her brother since she was a child.”

“It is true, for certain,” said Llyrica. “Rewards were offered that we be found.”

“This makes her of worth to us as Haesten’s weakness,” said Slayde.

Eadwulf looked from man to man. “Just as he conceded defeat at Benfleet when Ceolmund and Alfred held his second wife and sons three years ago, so will he surrender if he thinks we keep his daughter. This sounds preferable to a long siege.”

“But her safety must never come into question. In no moment will the warlord come within a rod of her.” She seemed ready to protest, but Slayde cut her off. “This negotiation will not proceed save by
my
design, according to my command. The first step is done. Llyrica has given Broder the message and we will wait to hear the answer. Now let us get to refreshments. I am to oversee how construction goes this day. Byrnstan, take Llyrica to the ship. Post guards and see she is well looked after.”