Loveweaver (18 page)

Ailwin’s snarl showed plain his contempt for Danes. “Haesten moved out of his stronghold thrice in this last week. Only just has he and fifty of his thieves raided Clayham in Hertfordshire. But they were turned back.” Slayde stood, ire arising as Ailwin continued. “In this latest, six of their cur lay dead and the others took off with only a few chickens and a bag of oats.”

“Holy Christ. It begins. The man does this because he starves or taunts me. Either reason is enough to move the day of our campaign closer. The fyrd is changed, the burhs are secured and the reserves are nearly all arrived and outfitted. My co-captains are returned. Food stores are abundant. Naught is left to be done but sail up the Lea and do this thing.”

Damn.
StoneHeart flicked a glance up, felt his heart leap at a perceived glimpse of Llyrica. A quick recovery was in order, ere Eadwulf or Ailwin suspect StoneHeart gave his Viking wife a second thought.

A moon since I have seen her, touched her. An eternity.

“Not another week then do we wait, but move in three days. Make it known throughout the garrison that we start loading the ships tomorrow, that each man collect his gear, say goodbye to his family. Prepare to attack Fortress Lea.”

The moon raced through thin clouds, tilted his bright face down upon the deserted garrison yards and the ploughland beyond. Dogs barked their chorus from houses near to farms seen far from Llyrica’s window. In the stone house, she sat at the sill, the luxury of a single candle lighting the interior of the loft. It spilled down to where Eadgyth and Wynflaed snored on pallets below. Scented of summer earth, the chill night air rose the fine hairs on Llyrica’s bare arms as she peered out, too troubled to sleep, her shoulders fatigued from weaving.

I have nearly done it, Mother. My talents at the loom have brought me a measure of recognition as the Songweaver. Soon I will confront father.

But tales that Eadgyth told of Haesten blunted Llyrica’s self-assurance. If only half were true, her father would still be considered no less than ruthless, a deceitful murderer of hundreds. For thirty years he plundered the riches of others from Luna to Amiens, duped and betrayed kings and clerics and broke agreements, turning around to ravage the same lands he had just been paid to leave in peace. He finally left east Francia with thousands of his followers to try his hand at conquering the Isle. From the moment his foot touched the Kentish shore, Slayde’s father chased the Danish warlord from one bloody raid to the next. Where Ceolmund left off, the son took over.
My husband.

A terrifying task this, for Llyrica to confront her father, a conscienceless man, an infamous wife-beating looter. Her mind stormed with too many black thoughts. Over the years she had come to blame him for Mother’s lingering death and now felt heartsick with shame at reports of his exploits. Her stomach knotted when she dared guess his reaction when he faced the daughter denied him, or wish that he might feel sadness or regret that he had not known her.

Hark
, a footfall in the soft earth below the stone window. Two figures, lit by the moon, one following the other: Byrnstan following the sleepwalker toward Slayde’s round house. Sweet forgetfulness approached. At last, he came.

Her heart in her throat, Llyrica flew down the ladder, the fine silk of her cemes fluttering about her legs. Four weeks of weaving songs and selling braids had not diminished her longing for the sleepwalker’s tenderness. Nor had StoneHeart’s blatant indifference to his wife doused this lovely, relentless ache of desire. The song she wove into Slayde’s braid had wound its spell around her as well.

The door opened, revealed the sleepwalker, black hair awry, dressed in linen brecs, though tied loosely to hang low on his hips. A glimpse of straight white teeth, a smile, rarely seen, played upon his wondrous mouth. His dark eyes captured highlights and reflected undiluted pleasure to see her.

He did not tarry at the threshold, but quickly crossed the distance to Llyrica at the base of the ladder, took her in a swift and effortless embrace. Before she surrendered troubling thoughts and all of her senses to him, Llyrica saw Byrnstan rouse the thralls, send them out, bidding them sleep elsewhere for the night. With haste, the priest padded close to convey a parting message.

“He untied his own hand and I guessed what he was about. I dressed him in the briefest sense, lest the StoneHeart be discovered walking naked across the yards at midnight, trailed by his priest. I will come for him long before the cock crows.”

Llyrica managed a nod, then was lost before the closing of the door as she descended into muscled heat. The sleepwalker enveloped her, the low rumble of his moan reverberating from his chest to hers before it unfurled throughout her limbs. He inhaled deeply of her neck, grazed along her jaw and cheek until his seeking lips found hers. His firm grip on her plaited hair, a gentle tug and Llyrica’s face tipped up to receive his kiss. A suffusion of moist warmth and clean mint drugged her, compelled her to open her mouth that he might pour himself into her. The sleepwalker did, with a fervent groan, a plunge of his tongue, and a press of his body that pushed her against the ladder. A long moment and he let her loose, took her hands in his. He drew her fingertips to his lips, then to his brow. Llyrica understood his wordless request to smooth away life’s cares.

“I have gone mad without you,” he said. His eyes were closed, the masculine planes of his face cast in undulating shadows from the candle and the odd angle of moonlight above. He was beautiful. “The thought of this, of your hands on me, has kept me from running as a lunatic through the streets of London.”

“Yet you have been content with only
thoughts
of me?” she chided gently as she massaged his brow. She felt an occasional spasm of his eyelid, so stroked it gently, planted a kiss. If he would only let her tend him thusly until his deepest worries fell away.

The sleepwalker pulled her hands from his face, brought them around his waist where he held them behind his back. Her breasts flattened against his chest. “I have not known contentment until now. So turn, my silken bride, and climb this ladder as I have had also fed my sanity on thoughts of following you to the loft.”

“I have thought you would never come.”

He gave Llyrica a twist to face her about, and hand over hand, she began the ascent with the sleepwalker at her heels. Thirty steps to the top, but he overcame her at fifteen, captured her midway. Along the climb, he had kicked off his brecs and now straddled her from behind, his feet planted on the outside of hers on the same rung. One hand held tight to the ladder, and with one arm around her waist, he nestled his body into hers, kissed the nape of her neck. His naked sex, already full and hard, prodded her hip from behind.

“I know you have been busy uploft, weaving while you sing.” His breath was hot on her neck as he undid her plait, combed her hair with splayed fingers. “But surely you have had time to look for me from the window. ’Twould wound me, love, if you say you have not.”

Elation blossomed. Llyrica clung two-fisted to the rung above her head. “In idle moments between weaving my braids, yea, I have looked out into the world. Perhaps I even gave in to brief curiosity as to what kept you so occupied, that you stayed out of my sight.”

“Whatever it was, I damn it now ... and myself ... and vow make retribution for my failings as a husband.” As a token of his word, his hand moved from her waist, slipped over silk to cup her breast and tease her nipple into a hard pearl. Llyrica’s head fell back onto his shoulder, invited the sleepwalker to kiss her throat. She sighed a note from a song, and his hand dropped to between her thighs, stroked her to a desperate need.

She could scarcely form words. “I pray we go on up to the pallet. Have you forgotten we stand on a ladder?”

“Nay, I have not. Turn around. I will not let you fall.”

“But I ... we ...” Her objection lingered on her lips as the sleepwalker assisted Llyrica to face him on the ladder. A precarious perch half way between the floor and the loft, her hands held to the rung above her head, her feet draped on the rung beneath. The sleepwalker held her securely, kissed her, snugged his hips to hers. She felt his manpart throb and move between them.

“Hold on tight,” he whispered in her ear. Leaving her breathless and perplexed, the sleepwalker descended the ladder to her feet, carefully nudged them apart, to the width of the rung. He began a slow climb up ...
inside of her gown
.  A torturous caress, he glazed her ankles, calves and knees with hungry kisses and nips of flesh.

“
StoneHeart
!” Involuntarily, her protest arose at his unholy ministrations. It must be wicked, this passion expressed in an unseemly location amid a fear of falling. Yet she was caught, strung up on a ladder, prey to the pleasure inflicted by her husband’s lips. She had felt his fleeting hesitation when she called him by his daylight name, and vowed to be more careful, lest he become troubled and awaken.

The sleepwalker persisted, unchecked. “Soft as dove’s wing.” He murmured against her inner thigh, brushed his lips across quivering skin.

Climbing higher beneath her garment, holding one-handed to the rungs behind her, he pressed his ear to the valley of her breasts. Pushed to her leg was his magnificent iron shaft, an astonishing reminder of their marriage consummation. Would that she could let loose a hand and reach down to touch it.

“How have you done this, little fox? Reduced me to a blithering idiot with a single craving ... to know every inch of you inside and out.”

The answer might lie in the potent lovesong she wove into his tunica braid, but she discovered he had spells of his own. Her position on the ladder thrust her breasts forward, offered them defenseless to the sleepwalker. He rooted for a nipple, suckled firmly. Whimpering, she could naught but hang onto the rung above and arch closer.

The trembling in her limbs increased. “I-I am slipping. I w-will surely plunge to my death.” Yet the danger heightened her arousal.

The sleepwalker moaned at her nipple. “Hold on a moment longer, Sweet Softness, while I drink my fill of you. I must find forgiveness for despoiling you in haste a moon ago.”

Skimming down her body with his nose and mouth, he greeted her swollen sex with a nuzzling. He burrowed deep within her femininity. His tongue gifted her with wet lashes and slipped inside, a sinful penetration. Heat met heat, probed her soft interior until flesh caught fire. A dizzying fever bloomed, spread in waves until Llyrica was blind and panting with pleasure. Detached, suspended, nothing existed save the shimmering release that lay just beyond her reach. The sleepwalker seemed to know this, took her to the brink of climax, led it fade, then drove her to the edge again.

“I p-pray thee, husband. Why do you torment me?”

His reply came when he left his tent of Llyrica’s cemes. He climbed a few rungs until he aligned with her, cradled her head with one hand, kept a steady grip of the ladder with the other. “Tell me you want me. Then kiss me, Llyrica. Open your soft mouth for me.”

The only answer possible was her strangled sigh, a cry of a passionate desperation.

Demanding, urgent, he took before she gave, his lips hard, bruising, a hint of the StoneHeart in the sleepwalker. Sustaining the kiss, he dropped his hand from her head and lifted her gown. Warm male flesh encountered the bud of her need. In a swift maneuver, he pressed his manpart to her entrance, a tight arrangement, since she could spread her legs only to the limits of the ladder. He cupped her hips with one hand.

“And now.” He groaned against her mouth. “Open your silk and let me in.”

Llyrica braced for his immense size, though the liquid passion inside her ensured a measure of ease. But his gliding upward thrust, a deep sheathing of exquisite friction, evoked Llyrica’s sharp gasp.

The sleepwalker went still, his breath labored. “I pray I have not hurt you.”

She shook her head, overcome by the throbbing heat that filled her, the promise of release that pulsed between them. “You will if we do not continue. And soon.”

A low chuckle and he kissed her. “Let go your hands. I have got you.”

Secure in his strength, she wrapped her arms around his neck, rode him as he began to plunge and withdraw. His frequency increased, his manpart stroking her within and caressing her outer nib. Sensations spiraled to a desperate frenzy, a mindless insanity on a ladder, lit by the moon.

Her climax came in brilliant flash, its succeeding currents rippling to her fingertips and toes. She clung to the sleepwalker with weakened arms, her legs quivering as he moved in and out, harder and deeper. The sleepwalker’s groan of pleasure attended a final forceful thrust and she felt the hot liquid of his seed pour into her.