Naked (11 page)

I blinked, hard. No weakness would I show the Earl of Mercia. “You say you come for the good of the Saxons? How can that be if you take a Saxon woman’s lands—by force?”

“Would you prefer it had been Thurkill?”

Thurkill’s fat talons groping my breast. What would have happened if Leofric of Mercia hadn’t arrived … I concealed my shudder. “Maybe I would be better off! Am I your prize now, Lord Leofric? I am the spoils of war—for you?”

A long, considering surmise. “Not by force. I leave that to the Danes.”

“How noble.” Rue in my tone, a bitter-tongued herb. “Yet you, a Saxon lord of the Witan Council, want to take my inheritance.”

“No inheritance will remain if I do not. Mercia must be Coventry’s overlord, for the Saxon good.”

“Never!”

So casual. He shrugged.

Again tears started. I brushed them away from my cheeks before he could see them. “I’ve let the enemy inside my gates.”

“I am inside your gates.” A strange twist on Lord Leofric’s lips. “And inside them I intend to stay. But enemies … that’s not my intention.”

How could he not expect us to be enemies if he seized my lands?

As if I’d spoken aloud he answered my question.

“Be my wife, Godiva of Coventry.”

“You want me to marry you?”

A nod was his only reply.

As if for a weapon I grasped for a response, but none came. A sword, a shield. To attack. To defend. What response could I make? I could only stare.

Leaning across the table, his tone turned almost persuasive. “Let us come together as one. The Danes won’t try to take Mercia or the Middle Lands again if our lands are joined.”

“You seem to have it all planned out.” Sarcasm dripped.

A shrug of his shoulders. “It’s a good plan.”

“There’s a problem.”

Boldly I circled the table to position myself squarely in front of him, like a chess piece in the game my father had taught me. Yet my heart beat so loud I felt sure he could hear it.

“I won’t marry you, Lord Leofric.”

Anger combusted in his eyes, something darker thundering behind it. Internally I quaked.

The blaze passed. His face became granite. “You may find you’ve no choice.”

“I have a choice!” I held my ground. “These are my lands, and it’s the right of a Saxon noblewoman to marry with her consent. Do you dare to take that right from me, too?”

“Perhaps you ought to consider what’s more important. Your lands … or your husband?”

He pulled me into his arms. His lips that appeared so cold in repose were forge-fire as they discovered mine. Melting me, down into my belly, spreading like tongues of flame to liquefy my core.

Struggling to wrench my lips from his I tried to speak, my protest opening my mouth. Instead of releasing me he probed deeper with his tongue. Widened my lips. Bow-bent my body, drew me deeper into his embrace. My legs quivered with threat of surrender.

Heat swirled, rage, fear, and an emotion I dared not acknowledge as I dragged myself away. With shaking fingers I brushed loose strands of hair.

My body continued to smolder. His warm lips. Not cold. The caress of his tongue. Almost playful. The fire he’d stirred up in the deepest hearth of me.

Ablaze.

Silver and amber. The clasp on my cloak.

Talisman tight, I clutched it.

To withstand fire.

“This is treachery,” I gasped.

“This is wisdom,” Leofric corrected. “You must make up your mind. Coventry is mine. The battle has been won for it. All that remains is for you to decide whether you’ll be my hostage—or my wife.”

Hostage! Thurkill the Tall was the enemy who had threatened to take me hostage, not Leofric of Mercia. How could I have let this happen? What had I done?

“So I’m to be your prisoner.”

“There’ll be no need for that. But if you go out riding, take a guard with you.”

“I’m not to be kept under lock and key? Why thank you.” Caustic as lye, sarcasm crept into my tone once more. “But if I’m to be at liberty, I could escape.”

“You won’t escape, Godiva.” Leofric said. “You won’t leave your lands and your people. Will you?”

12

“You would not let your little finger ache

For such as these?”—“But I would die,” said she.

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

Rushing into my bower I threw myself down by the fire. Heaves wracked my body.

Too many emotions. Anger. Shock. Exhaustion.

Passion.

Still shaking, I grabbed the fire-iron and poked the fire into full life. Red, orange, yellow, blue. The flames leapt and mingled. When I went to the forge to have Ebur shod, the metal would change color until it was white hot. Hammered at melting point to alter consistency. To change shape.

Another heave of my quivering body.

Aine came in and hurried to my side. “Lady Godiva! What is it?”

“Oh, Aine!” I gulped mouthfuls of air.

She smoothed my hair. “Tell me.”

Pacing the room, I recounted what had happened. Except for Leofric’s kiss, though I sensed she guessed.

“I’ve failed my parents. I haven’t held Coventry safe.”

“Come now, that’s not true. You’re exhausted, that’s what it is. What you’ve been through. It’s too much. Here, let me wash your face.” She led me to the bench by the window. It was soothing to watch her bustle about, filling a bowl of water from the jug. Gently, she patted my face with a soft cloth, the lavender water cooling my hot cheeks.

“So, Lord Leofric seeks to marry you?”

“He said he was my ally in our fight against Thurkill. He lied to me! He tricked me! He believes the Danish peril is too great for the Middle Lands.”

Aine pursed her lips. “There doesn’t seem to be a lie in that.”

“He didn’t tell me he would try to overlord me,” I said tartly.

“Mercia is far mightier than Coventry and the Middle Lands,” Aine pointed out. “Lord Leofric is an earl, your father was a thane. Lord Leofric is your overlord already.”

Aine pressed on. “Isn’t Coventry more precious to you than anything else in the world?”

Tearing some herb leaves she mixed them with hot water. “Now, there’s nothing better than this herbal mixture of chamomile and sweet mint. Drink it and listen to me.”

Obedient as the child she’d brought up, I took a sip of the soothing liquid.

“This fighting has to end. Your mother would have wanted you to put what’s happened behind you. To be brave. To move on. That takes real courage.”

Slowly, I nodded. I understood what she was trying to say.

“Many Saxon women have done what you are being called to do. You know the name such women are given, those who marry to end war.
Fripwebba.
”

“
Peace weavers
.” I bit my lip. “I know Saxon women pride themselves on keeping the peace. But that’s not the path I was raised for. I’m a warrior.”

“But why do you fight, my lady? You fight to bring peace to your lands.” Aine said shrewdly. “It’s not battle you truly seek. It’s peace.”

Gripping the herb cup, I was silenced.

Aine picked up her sewing, lying nearby, and began to darn a hole in my tunic. The stitches, even and fine. “The needle can mend. The sword cannot.”

“But even if I want to bring peace, it doesn’t mean I have to marry against my will,” I objected. “I’m a Saxon noblewoman. I can marry with consent. It’s my right.”

“Yes, it’s your right.” She was quiet for a moment, deep in thought, though she didn’t drop a stitch. “What was your mother’s favorite tale?”

“Why … the tale of Beowulf.” So many nights we’d sat at the high table, in the flickering firelight, listening to the gleeman. “She liked to hear of Queen Wealtheow, the first
fripwebba,
the great peace weaver.”

The meaning dawned on me. “Do you mean my mother would want me to choose for my people and not for myself? To be a peace weaver?”

Aine bit off a loose thread. “I cannot say, my lady. But don’t think too long on this. It seems to me Lord Leofric won’t be kept waiting.”

*   *   *

From the top of the hill I could see it all.

The Middle Lands. The land of my people, the land of my cyn. The land I loved.

I’d ridden out as soon as I’d arisen, after another sleepless night. Gone out all day. Spoken to no one, not even Edmund. I needed to consider. To plan.

What was I going to do? Could I marry Lord Leofric? Could I be a peace weaver?

Running my tongue around my mouth, the imprint of his kiss seemed still upon me. His lips had been hot-iron, branding mine with forge-flame. No denying my anger with him for having trapped me. Also, no denying the other fervent flicker awakened below.

Leofric’s kiss. The dormant hearth inside me kindled, making me yearn for more. A hungry fire. Seeking fuel.

Yet here on this hill, Edmund had kissed me, too. Surprised me, sent me spinning. Into the whirlwind. Swirling in the vortex. Dizzy. So dizzy.

But Leofric’s kiss …

Home.

Below in Coventry smoke started to rise from the chimney holes as twilight fell. I knew each chimney, each house, each fireplace, each bench, each family tending the flames, cooking their evening meal. At any door I knocked, I would be welcomed inside.

Leofric of Mercia had my measure. No matter what peril I faced, no matter what harm I risked, I’d never leave my home.

*   *   *

Edmund threw open the stable door. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

I dropped the horse brush. Ebur moved restlessly in the stall.

He yanked me by my shoulder, out of the horsebox.

The wound on my arm stabbed. I rubbed my arm. “That hurt!”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me. You’ve always told me everything. What’s happened?”

I stared into his mirror-grey eyes, as familiar to me as my own.

“Tell me.”

“Lord Leofric has asked me to wed.”

“He wants to marry you?”

I gave a rapid nod.

“Is that all?”

“Not all.”

“He’s annexing the Middle Lands, isn’t he?”

Reluctantly, I nodded once more. The ride had cleared my headache, but already pressure again pounded at my temples.

“By God! I knew it!” Edmund roared. “He had this in mind all along! This can’t be allowed! Mercia to take the Middle Lands?”

“Mercia did save us against the Danes,” I said uneasily. My first thoughts had been the same.
Had Leofric planned it?

“That doesn’t mean you have to marry the Mercian lord!”

“If I marry him, I keep my lands. If not, all is lost.”

“So you’re going to do it? Are you mad? You mustn’t even consider marrying Leofric! You can’t trust him! Your parents would never have wanted this!”

“It’s a Saxon noblewoman’s right to choose whom she would marry. As heiress to the Middle Lands, you must choose wisely.”

“My parents wanted me to follow my heart.”

“And where is your heart?”

“With Coventry,” I said simply.

“Coventry.” Edmund almost spat out the word. “Always thus with you. Perhaps your parents did you a wrong to bring you up to talk of nothing else, making you so loyal to these lands.”

“Don’t speak against my parents, Edmund,” I snapped.

“Do you really think they would have wanted you to marry Lord Leofric? Listen to me, Godiva. Let’s get on our horses and ride away from here. We’ll leave now, today.”

He didn’t understand what Lord Leofric had grasped immediately. “I can’t leave the Middle Lands!”

“But we can’t stay here! Not with Mercia as our overlord.”

“Nor can I leave Coventry to such a fate without me! My place is here with my people. This is where I belong.”

“You belong to me.”

My back slammed against the stable wall.

My wrist imprisoned above. My injured arm hanging.

“Godiva. You’ve always been mine. I’ve waited for you.”

His lips a hot blade against my cheek. His smell, metal clean. I knew Coventry town by sound and smell. He’d led me through the streets, blindfolded. So I knew Edmund.

“So much has been taken from you already. I should have saved you from Thurkill. I’ll never forgive myself,” he murmured. “Let me save you now. Marry me. Your parents wanted us to wed, you know it.”

Teeth sharpened on my neck.

Ravenous. Devouring.

His mouth on mine. Teasing me open …

Wrenching my wrist free, I ducked out of his hold and pushed him away.

He staggered.

“What is it?” His teeth were gritted. “What’s changed between us?”

My lips felt numb. Everything had changed since Leofric had kissed me. But before that, too.

Edmund cursed. “Were you ever going to marry me? When I asked you before the Witan. Were you going to say yes?”

Numb and dumb. Impossible to reply.

At the feast before my parents left for the Witan, that’s when I’d known. In a flash I’d realized I would never marry Edmund. Some kind of foretelling, such as Aine possessed. An intuition, a gift I hadn’t recognized.

He must have seen the answer in my eyes.

Fury on his face. Fury, hurt pride. And rejection.

But not complete surprise.

“I’m sorry.” A fragment. A whisper.

I should have told him. I knew that. But I hadn’t known how.

A crack.

A crash.

Lightning.

In a twist of rage Edmund kicked in the stable wall.

Shards. Splinters.

Knives through the air.

Behind me Ebur neighed and pawed. I shivered away, closer to my horse.

Another furious kick.

A jagged hole. He spun around.

“You’ve played me for a fool. Led me on all these years.”

“No, no! I was confused. I wasn’t sure.”

“Sure of what? Of me?”

“Please, Edmund! Try to forgive me. We can get beyond this. Be my friend, as you always have been.”

“Your friend!” He cursed again. “What are you asking of me? I can’t stand by and be your friend if you wed the Earl of Mercia. And you’re going to marry him, aren’t you?”

I bit my lip.

“Well, I won’t watch you do it, whether it’s for the good of the Middle Lands or not. I’m leaving. I only stayed here—for you.”