Lady of the Lake (5 page)

“The pain will end shortly,” he said.

Her response was a curt nod. He renewed his efforts at restoring the blood to her numb extremities. Her naked breasts brushed his hands and forearms. The soft, tempting cones stood out against the pale cloth of her gown pooled low over her hips.

Edon deliberately laid her useless hand on her thighs, knowing she would not move them voluntarily—not before the painful tingling of waking flesh abated. He stroked his hands up her bare arms and caressed her shoulders, gently massaging her neck and throat.

“You are very beautiful, Tala ap Griffin. No, do not try to speak. I will tell you what I think, and you will listen to my words because I am going to be your husband very soon. There is only one logical solution for the question of who is entitled to rule Warwick. That is to unify our separate claims by marriage. I am glad your breasts appeal to me. I want to put my hands on them and rub them like I am rubbing your hands, but you are angry and I won’t. Later you will be very happy to let me touch your breasts and see you naked. You won’t want to clobber me, because you will be grateful for all the pleasure I give you.”

Tala swallowed. She’d been choking with that gag in her mouth. Now she couldn’t muster a drop of saliva to spit in his eye. The monster deserved to have his throat slit with his own knife. She would do it, just as soon as the stinging pains in her arms abated.

Edon placed a chaste kiss upon her temple. He did not dare kiss her quivering mouth. It would be over if he did, for he could not control his desire for her much longer. He got up, reaching for his breeks and drew them on, minding the discomfort of his arousal.

King Alfred insisted she was a virgin, revered by her people and untouched even at the advanced age of twenty. She had the freedom to roam the forest of Arden—nay, all of ancient Mercia—protected by the golden torque encircling her throat. None who saw her dared molest her, for a princess of Leam was as sacred to the Celts as their Lady of the Lake herself.

Whether she was virgin or not, Edon didn’t care to strain his control further by lighting a lamp and seeing her naked before him when he was fully aroused. He’d had enough sweet temptation to last him a good long while. When next he toyed with her, he would take her.

But that delight was for another day. Fastening his belt at his hips, he reached for flint and iron. He coaxed a flame onto the wick of the tin lantern, then hung the oil lamp on the hook beside his bed.

The princess of Leam’s slanted amber eyes gazed at him. He stared at her breasts and the faint cinnamon freckles that glazed their plump curves and her shoulders. Cinnamon freckles were very nice.

He reached for her, saying, “Come. Stand before me and I will do what I can to fix your gown. You look a fright. My people will think I have already bedded you.”

“Ass,” Tala croaked as he brought her to her feet.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Edon wagged a finger under her nose. “Provoke me and I will push you onto your back and have
my way with you now. I am a man. I am as weak as any other man. Your king wants this nonsense in Warwick ended, and I know exactly the way to end the squabbling between two women. I do what kings command. You have no say in the matter whatsoever, so we will not argue about such silly things again.”

Edon turned her slightly, to grasp the top of her gown and bring the halves together at her left shoulder. He unpinned the brooch and folded the cloth securing the pin. He frowned, judging his work satisfactory, then turned to her other side, repeating the process.

“There. That will work. You are much more desirable with your clothes gathered at your hips. I will not mind having a Brit with such beautiful breasts for a wife, so long as you can keep your tongue behind your teeth.”

Tala tilted her head as she glared at him. The Viking sod hadn’t the good sense the gods granted the sparrows. How dare he so abuse her—a princess of Leam. She would kill him before she consented to marry him! She turned aside and reached toward the bed, grasping his knife. But when she straightened to stick it in his throat, the handle slipped out of her numb, tingling hand. The blade fell and thrummed as its point stuck in the wooden floor.

Startled by her quick move to the offense, Edon bent and retrieved his weapon. Resolving not to be so careless in the future, he put it back in its sheath, secure on the belt at his waist.

Ignoring him and angry at her own ineptness, Tala stalked out into the darkened hall. The trestle had been taken down, but a sideboard held a pitcher and cups and a wooden bowl of fruit. She filled a cup and drank it dry. By then Edon of Warwick had donned his leggings and shoes and covered his wide chest with a tunic.

“Come, you may show me the way to your home now, Tala ap Griffin. Your servants will be worried sick.”

“I’m never speaking to you again,” Tala croaked in the best voice she could muster.

The Wolf of Warwick cocked his head to the side, staring at her quizzically. “Frankly, lady, I count that a relief. Women have a great tendency to chatter overly much, so I shall appreciate having one in my household who is silent. Come, my men have the horses ready. I have a great deal of work to do on the morrow.”

Ignoring him completely, Tala headed down the stairs. She prayed for him to trip and fall and break his neck. When he reached the bottom floor in one piece, she realized prayers weren’t the answer. She should have cast a spell.

Wise enough to outsmart most Vikings in the Danelaw, Tala gave Jarl Edon instructions to the village of Wootton instead of to the forest. Mother Wren was beside herself, pacing the parched, brown grass outside her cottage, fearing the fate that had befallen her charge in Warwick. She gave a shout of joy when she spied Tala on the jarl’s mount as he rode into her yard.

Then, because the crone was matriarch to all and sundry that remained of the dwindling folk of Leam, she lit into the Viking.

“You had no right keeping my lady out to the wee hours of the morn!” the old harridan complained. She gathered the princess against her bosom, cooing over Tala as if she were Wren’s very own chick.

Edon gave the cottage a good look, fixing it in his mind. He intended to return very soon and visit his bride-to-be. The more time he spent with her, the less she would resist their approaching nuptials.

“Where are the princess’s guards, Selwyn and Stafford, and her brother, Venn?” he asked the old woman.

“Out!” Mother Wren snapped testily. “Searching the fens for her. Where else would they be, lord? In the loft
asleep like lazy, uncaring curs? Not our brave Selwyn and Stafford. As for Venn, he may be a boy but he knows his duty to his sister.”

Edon grumbled under his breath. He wanted the boy in his custody, now more than ever. If he took Venn ap Griffin back to Warwick, there’d be no argument whatsoever from Tala when the king’s confessor recited the vows. “When the atheling returns, tell him I will send my man Rig to fetch him midafternoon. He may accompany me hawking.”

“Oh! Venn will like that, he will.” Mother Wren cackled, pretending to agree, when she knew better. Venn would spit in the Viking’s eye. “Now be off with you. My lady’s near to fainting as she stands.”

Wren hurried Tala inside the cottage, slamming shut the half door. They both hugged each other for support, lest they collapse as they listened for the Vikings to ride away.

“My lady—” old Wren exhaled deeply, her hand pressing hard upon her heart “—this night my hair went from gray to white in the span of a moonrise. Do this to me again and I’ll be laid out from stone to stone.”

“Wren, you are a more splendid mummer than the stagmen of Arden Wood.” Tala hugged the old woman tightly and kissed her wrinkled cheek in deepest gratitude. “Thank you, thank you. I feared you would give the game away when he demanded to know Venn’s whereabouts.”

Wren cackled and patted her arm. “It takes little guile to fool a Dane, child.”

It wasn’t long before Tala paced the cottage in high dudgeon, raising small clouds of dust on the hard-packed earth floor with her feet. She’d exchanged her royal mantle and sadly mangled gown for her hunting dress and had put her gold armbands and diadem in the casket where they remained safe between uses.

“Have you heard a single word I’ve said, Mother Wren?”

“Yes, yes, I heard every word.” the old woman sat on her stool, yanking at her distaff. She jabbed a favorite bone on the bottom and gave it a twirl, making the stick spin. Bent fingers fed the spinning wood a hank of wool, and a thread formed in the blink of Tala’s eye. “All of Leam is to become Christians and you’re to marry a Viking. I heard you say it all only moments ago. What of it? Being a Christian isn’t so bad.”

“What of it?” Tala’s hands tightened to fists. “These Vikings murdered my parents!”

“Nay, Tala. That isn’t true. Jarl Edon and
his
Vikings had nothing to do with your parents’ death and you know that. Just as you know you must yield to the kings’ will. Tegwin has no power. Half the old stories are jumbled in his head. Why can you not listen to those who are wiser than you? We all see the end of it.”

“Wren, not you, too?” Tala said sorrowfully. “Venn is trying to hold on to his birthright. He has the right to believe in the old gods of Leam, gods that made our land what it was. It isn’t just a tradition to him to make gold offerings to the Lady of the Lake, it’s a ritual. He believes the gods will speak to him. That their spirits show themselves in his vision dreams.”

“Venn is a boy. He knows what he is taught. Send him to an abbey and he will learn of the Christ. Foster him out as your father would have done. Let Venn learn the new ways. He will adapt. You know, Saint Ninian converted all of Wessex. Why does Leam resist? The days of the druids are over.”

“You don’t understand, Wren. Venn refuses to abandon the last living druid. I have tried to convince him to return to Chester or go study in any abbey. He will not. Not unless I allow Tegwin to go with him.”

“Then you must do something drastic.”

“Such as?”

“Marry the Viking,” Wren cackled. “Had I a man such
as that plowing my belly, I’d have never gone to the convent at Lyotcoyt. I saw him ride into Warwick on that black horse of his. Ooch, I’d nay let a man such as that get away…a black Dane. His mother was Irish. He’ll give you sons aplenty.”

Tala rolled her eyes and asked the gods for patience. Wren was so old she was addled. “You are not helping. I’d kill the Viking’s sons to repay them for killing my father.”

“You speak where you know not. King Alfred gave you leave to take your sisters to summer in Chester and you come to Warwick to stir up trouble in the grove. Take the Viking. It will go better for you.”

“And then what? Do I turn my back on my brother? You know what will happen if I do. If I leave Venn here alone this summer, Tegwin will convince him to be the sacrifice on the night of Lughnasa.”

The distaff wobbled to a stop in Mother Wren’s gnarled hands. She stared balefully at the small peat fire in her hearth, which gave so little light to her rude cottage. “Truly, Tala ap Griffin, I am no help to you. Venn is of royal blood, chosen for his fate by that blood. We cannot change it. Not you or I. He will be happy in the Other World.”

Tala dropped to her knees before the old woman and gripped her gnarled fingers between her hands. “Mother Wren, I love my brother. I have cared for him since he was a very little boy. I cannot let him go to the otherworld, not even if by doing that his sacrifice will save this world of mine. My life will be empty without him…as it would be without Lacey and Audrey and Gwynnth. They are all the blood I have left. They are my life, my heart, my soul.”

“There, there,” Mother Wren said, pulling her hands free so she could console her. “Marrying the Viking need
not end your world. The Dane is strong hearted. ‘Haps he can protect what you cannot.”

“Don’t tell me to do foolish things, like accepting a black Viking for a husband. Help me find a way to stem the flow of change. If the Vikings could be turned back to the Avon, then Venn could take his rightful place in this domain. Venn is Leam’s last true son. Think you of what it would mean if he lived a full measure of years and had sons of his own.”

“Aye.” Old Mother Wren nodded. “He is the last of our kings. No more and no less deserving of a long full life than the first king to pick up a club and make all obey him. I do not know what to tell you, child. You must seek your answers from souls wiser than I.”

“Aye,” Tala said.
But who?
she asked herself on the long walk home through the forest in the dark of night.

The old gods did not appear to Tala. Years had passed since the old temple in the clearing had appeared to her as the legendary Citadel of Glass. She saw it now as only a vitrified stone hall, emptied of its former greatness and mysticism by the changing times.

It was not yet dawn when Tala reached the lake. She walked far out onto the stone causeway until she stood with water completely surrounding her. The sky was clear, full of its fading stars. A blue, waxing moon hung low in the western sky, its pale orb reflected a thousand times in the tiny waves on the still, dark lake.

The water moved as it always did, with strange currents skating from bank to bank. Swells rose midlake and ran off to flood the fens. Whirlpools churned, then abruptly ceased, and the black water went as flat as a griddle. There were none alive who could divine the portends of the lake. In ages past, the princesses of Leam could interpret each omen they witnessed. But Tala couldn’t.

The only power that had come down to her generation
was the ability to find water in dry earth. The chain of knowledge had been broken with the coming of the monks.

But it was an unheard-of catastrophe for no rain to fall between Beltane and Lughnasa. The three most fertile months of the growing season had so far passed without a drop of rain to replenish the rivers and streams.

And that tragedy had opened the ancestral mind of the people of Leam. They remembered the old rituals and sacrifices that had saved their land long years ago.

Like Tala, Venn and Mother Wren, every remaining soul born of Leam knew that if no rain fell between today and August 1, the only thing that would save them was the blood sacrifice of the atheling of Leam. The feast of the first fruits—Lughnasa—was Leam’s last chance to redeem the gods’ favor.