Loveweaver (6 page)

“Mushrooms, for God’s sake.” Slayde envied his men afield. They had nothing on their minds but shooting arrows into target made of hay shocks.

“You must go to Rochester in any case. Half a day’s ride there, conduct your business and stop the night at your mother’s. Then tomorrow the lass and I will slip across the border and make inquiries as to the whereabouts of her brother.” 

Slayde shook his head. “Her
brother,
she says. I have a new theory which makes more sense than that story she has concocted. I will wager she was not on her way
to
East Anglia, but fleeing from it. Fleeing from one lover
with
another.” He drew back his bowstring with an imaginary arrow, let it fly. The vibration of the bow hummed through his arm.

“You have got my attention, son. Pray go on.”

“If you have seen Haesten’s rings in the money purse, as have I, then you must see how they are family rings that would not be given in trade. And the Dane warlord has not been out of this country since he arrived three years ago. His estranged wife and two little sons are reported still up in Stamford. It is my conjecture that Llyrica was his mistress, but a man much younger than the aging Haesten caught her eye. She stole the old man’s loot, ran off with her young lover then bought passage on a merchant’s ship to escape. When I saved her in the water, she made up the thin tale of a brother,
Broder,
but of course she was short on other details.”

“Preposterous.” Byrnstan crossed his arms. “You have an inventive mind. You always have.”

“Consider that if she was on a merchant’s ship coming from Denmark, it would have passed through Wantsum Channel and approached from the southeast. Behind us, priest. Not ahead of us.” Slayde shook his head. “Should we truly believe she was in a barrel for three days?”

“Traffic may have been too thick and her ship came the long way around Thanet, then ran into turbulent waters. You have seen it thus yourself.”

“Tell me why else she fairly screamed when I mentioned Haesten’s name last night. If the money purse came from his coffers, it would explain the coins and jewelry from every corner of the world. He made a living by plundering every church between here and east Francia!”

Genuine doubt now etched Byrnstan’s face. “Do you think, if all of this was so, she would willingly venture back into East Anglia?”

“Aye, her heart compels her to find her lover. Tell me how else she would come by Haesten’s rings other than by theft.”

“I am at a loss for now. But know I will take a retinue with me into East Anglia should what you say be true. Haesten will not get her back.”

“Indeed, neither will I allow her to return to him. Until I am ready to do so.” Slayde held up his hand to Byrnstan’s impending protest. “While I am in Rochester at the State of the Shire assembly, I will make inquiries of merchants at the harbor. If a money purse the size and value of hers is gone missing, news of it would travel as swiftly as does trade. Whether here on the Isle or across the sea. If I am right about the vixen and I deem her of worth to Haesten, she will prove either bait or distraction or a valuable hostage.”

“I cannot condone you using her thusly!” Byrnstan’s gray eyes shot sparks, his white hair uncombed and wild. “No matter what her sins!”

Slayde did not back down. “We all pay for our crimes one way or the other. Now admit you have made a poor judgement about the woman and I will not rub it in.” The shouting of StoneHeart’s name now echoed across the training yard, prompting both men to turn toward the eighty troops lined up in a row.

“Go on,” Byrnstan said dryly. “Your men lament your absence and await a demonstration of your prowess with the longbow. It is settled then. Within the hour, we go to Rochester and take the woman with us.”

“Aye, we will.” Slayde brushed past him. “But do not get too attached to her. I see no future for the vixen other than that which I provide. It will prove to be elsewhere.”

Slayde took his hasty leave from Byrnstan, adjusted his belt so that his quiver hung more agreeably at his hip. Through mud, he stalked toward his men, one hand holding his bow, the other stroking his sword’s pommel for luck.

He would conclude this morning drill, as he did all others, by shooting three arrows into an old Viking banner tied to a hay shock, the cloth so full of holes that the raven design was nearly obliterated. Such actions reserved for men only were blessedly free from female trappings and for a short time he need neither think of Llyrica nor of the impending visit to his mother.

But if thoughts of women did not disturb his male pursuits, then those of his father would, making him second-guess each accomplishment. Slayde took credit for his skilled army of archers, the first in Wessex, yea, perhaps the entire Isle, and he also took pride in his foresight to see the potential of bows and arrows in war. This idea, at least, had not met with Ceolmund’s disapproval. Nor had his tower with the flashing code, his arrowheads, forged with holes for signal sounds, and his other inventions of warfare. A creator and a builder were not professions of a warrior and he hid these tendencies behind practicality. During Slayde’s unorthodox construction of Ceolmund’s house, he had convinced his father that the complex timber framing meant durability not artfulness. The upper rooms showed evidence of their highborn status and were not for the frivolities of comfort or privacy. He also won Ceolmund over to the idea of polished plank walls instead of rough-hewed by telling him of the impressive background they would make for his trophies of war and the tapestries depicting a man’s violent victories. War and manhood. He had been raised to believe that any other life would mark him as a fairygirl.

As Slayde crossed the field, Ailwin commanded the men to attention, their arrows put down and bows propped under one arm. They stayed in the formation of one great row, their shouts of StoneHeart’s name transformed to chanting, though they parted to allow their ealdorman his place at the center. His position was a two score rod distance from his target, ten more than the average at which his men practiced on the fifty hay shocks. The target had been cleared of arrows, the red and black banner pulled tight across the shock, and a yellow fabric circle the size of an egg placed where the raven’s heart would be. This mark was sufficient in size to accommodate three arrows, cleanly shot. StoneHeart had never missed a one.

As the chanting of his name died down and his troops each lowered to one knee, Slayde focused on the yellow spot, blocking out the sounds of thralls in the gardens beyond his house and the washing of clothes in the river below. Not dogs barking, warm breezes ruffling his men’s tunicas, or a bird calling overhead swayed him from his fixed goal. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to the string, drew back and took aim.

Llyrica’s cheek, soft as dove’s wing, flashed in his mind the instant he released his fingers from the nock. The arrow zinged, then hit the outer edge of the raven’s heart. In unison, his men gave a shout of approval. Slayde kept his face placid, took a deep breath, and none would know his momentary lapse. He increased his determination, set up another shot and pulled.

As he fired, Llyrica’s flaxen hair, ginger-scented, swept across his chest in a daydream. A loud crack ensued. His arrow had inexplicably snapped in two. A rumbling of disbelief clamored through his men as his second silently stepped forward to pick up the two halves of the shaft where they lay at the ealdorman’s feet. Ailwin receded back to his kneel on the ground.

Slayde set his jaw, removed another arrow from his quiver and inspected it for defects and finding none. Aye, the weak place lay within his heart and good to see it now as a test, one that with unequaled concentration, he could win. In a perfect stance and deliberate form, just as his father had taught him at age three, Slayde nocked his arrow, stretched the string, raised the bow, and sighted down the shaft to the bright target. But in the moment he let the arrow fly, Llyrica’s lips, soft and dewy as a rose petal, brushed against his mouth in a remembrance, and a jolt shot through his torso straight to his groin.

His arrow whizzed high over its target, lifted aloft on a breeze and sailed with no signs of slowing. The troops all stood, straining to see it nearly disappear from sight, and it might have traveled further had it not hit the thatched roof of Slayde’s house and stuck deep. Praise God it had not descended and impaled any of the thralls who now gathered around to see what had made the whoosh and thump. Nor did it hit any of his men’s family members, or Slayde’s little brother, who dwelt in the guardian’s home next to his own.

The sound of men shifting uneasily from one foot to the other proclaimed Slayde’s failure. One of his arrows nearly missed the raven’s heart, the second broke in two and the third was a hazardous runaway. He cursed this blow to his perfect record, silently wondering if his troops blamed the little fox in his house as surely as he did. A woman had penetrated the stone heart of ealdorman Slayde, rendering him incompetent as a man’s man.

“Bloody well done, ealdorman!” shouted Ailwin. “Might you show us this new technique! ‘Twas it wind direction played a part or new feathering?”

Slayde detected a patronizing tone in Ailwin’s question, whether intended or not, then heard it passed from man to man. They gathered around so as not to miss StoneHeart’s reply.

He made light of the matter, used it in his favor. “I have plans for new fletching, indeed, and the development for a high flyer. We will need every device in our fight against Haesten.”

Christ. The name of Llyrica’s lover reminded him of
her
again. He turned his provocation on his army, called out to reach the farthest man. “Those who come with me, make ready to go. We are away in an hour. Ailwin, see to it. All others, the lookouts and coast patrol await their replacements.” Stringing his longbow through his arm, Slayde spun on his heel and made for his house.

The vixen had done damage enough and would not spend another night under the same roof with him, be it of his own house, or any other. He would pack up the money purse and bundles of exotic wovengoods and bid Byrnstan to drop her off across the border. Any advantage she might gain him with her tie to Haesten would not be worth a coin if the StoneHeart’s reputation was ruined, then found his leadership undermined with snickering doubt. No one, for God’s sake, would take him seriously if he could not shoot off a decent arrow. Aye, he would be rid of her by noontide. But first he needed to conduct one last test.

“Did you hear the arrow hit the roof? My brother shot it from down on the field.”

Elfric stood in the doorway, the sun shining behind his fair head. Llyrica knew he jabbered as an excuse to watch her work the yarn into a braid. “Only a mother’s boy would weave,” he said, finally coming to the point. “Or sew or cook or clean or wash clothes.”

Llyrica looked up from her tablet weaving. “I have never seen a man weave, but he would if he had to.” She paused to massage a drop of oil into her hands before she returned to her task. “And if a man was alone and hungry, should he eat his meat raw? Or if his clothes are rent and dirty, should he go about as a tattered peasant? Nay, Elfric, a man can do anything he chooses.”

The boy pondered this as he watched her at her craft. “Only a mother’s boy would make patterns in color as you do now.”

“I wonder if it was a man or woman who wove your father’s tapestries hung there on the wall. It does not seem the work of a woman. So perhaps a father’s boy could also weave. But only if he can ride, hunt, shoot a bow and arrow and swing from yon ladder.” Llyrica turned her attention back to her design and the spell she wove within, the very opposite of the Ceolmund’s wall hangings.

Before sunup and with Byrnstan and Eadgyth’s help, she had obtained sufficient yarn from the household stores. After measuring and cutting the warp yarn, she had threaded it through twenty-eight four-holed tablets according to Slayde’s design. Smooth as glass, worn from countless turnings, her grandmother’s bone tablets flanked the ends. This project spanned more than enough distance for the finished results, tied between one of the vertical poles of fabric loom and a lodge post in the corner. She would scoot along the floor as the weaving progressed, let the warp stay fixed.

One half of the braid was finished, an accurate copy of Slayde’s present trim, yet this new contained the same song with which Mother had won father’s love. The lyrics were rich and dark, plunging deeply into the soul, the melody nostalgic and transportive.