Thief (15 page)

Sorcha saw goodness in her companion. And compassion. And a faith that made her seem stronger than she was at first appearance. And more beautiful.

Yet it was like Valhalla, beyond Sorcha’s reach. Somehow she couldn’t see such a loving God wanting anything to do with a thief. Truth be told, Sorcha had too much to worry about on This Side to spend much thought on the Other.

The king’s hall was as immense inside as out. Rows of great columns elaborately carved with animals of all sorts, as indeed all exposed wood seemed to be, supported the high-pitched roof. Tapestries, banners, and shields adorned the plastered walls, lending color enough for a spring fair. Smoke from the great hearth fire in the center of the building wafted upward toward an opening in the ceiling, while the scent of roasting meats and ales tempted the appetites of the guests. Servants wound in and out of the benches with great trays of meat, puddings, cheeses, and breads for the taking.

At the center of the longest wall, a board had been set up on a raised dais where King Hussa, Prince Hering, and the Lothian royal guests were seated. If the display of gold were any standard to judge by, both Saxon and Briton were equal in their costume and ornament. Crowns, torcs, armbands, and rings reflected torchlight all about them. While maidservants made water and towels available for hand washing, Sorcha waited with Eavlyn and the other noble ladies for Queen Aella’s instruction next to barrels of drink stacked near the kitchen’s entrance.

“You are to fill Hering’s goblet and those of his men from Burlwick as his future princess,” Sorcha explained to Eavlyn after the queen finished. Aella and her daughter would serve the king, Modred, and Eavlyn’s father, Blaise of Dunfeld. The other ladies in waiting would pour drink for Hussa’s thanes. “Our noble ladies only serve the alcohol. And hopefully,” Sorcha translated out of earshot of Aella, “you will be a better cupbearer than a weaver.”

“She’s right,” Eavlyn admitted with a grin. The pale veil and coronet she wore over her head and shoulders shimmered in the torchlight. Sorcha’s headcover was more like a fishnet of golden thread, allowing her hair, brushed loose over her shoulders, to show beneath. Unaccustomed to wearing a headdress, Sorcha resisted the urge to keep fiddling with it.

“If Hering expects me to clothe him,” Eavlyn confided, “he will go naked.”

Eavlyn had shared that most of her training had been academic, not domestic.

“Does he know—” Sorcha began.

Eavlyn cut her off. “He is more interested in my knowledge of the stars.
That
was made clear before the arrangement was agreed upon. Though I shall supervise weavers and seamstresses to be certain my husband and his company are properly attired.”

“Good thing.” Sorcha snickered. “Papa once told me of a widowed thane whose men nearly revolted, insisting he remarry because he
and
they were in rags.”

Cynric knew as well that Sorcha, like her mother, was neither weaver nor seamstress. She was a scop and businesswoman. He’d assured her that his seneschal’s wife proved most capable in the running of the household at Elford.

So Cynric was only interested in her as a brood sow.

Sorcha pushed the troubling thought aside, but Caden’s words took its place.

And life with a man twice your age is what you really want?

She stepped into Eavlyn’s shadow, as if to cower from the answer that thundered in her head. No. She’d prefer having wealth enough of her own to continue helping the children. But that was not possible.

Besides, going to Trebold with Caden held no guarantee of happiness either. Her birth mother struggled to make a living, just like Sorcha. Women sacrificed happiness for wealth and security all the time. As Eavlyn said, she had a mission. One worth sacrificing for.

A servant handed the princess a flagon of beer from a dark oak barrel. Sorcha would serve the same to Cynric and the Elford company … including Tunwulf.

As Sorcha made her way to Cynric’s board, he rose from his place of honor near the king’s table to greet her with boisterous enthusiasm. “Milady Sorcha, you grow more lovely by the day.”

Sorcha put the pitcher on the table, no more than a board and trestles, and allowed him to kiss her hand. He was not uncomely, even with the gray fringing the brown hair at his temples.

“Your gifts would make any woman beautiful. Am I not the luckiest man here tonight?” he boasted above the music of a twosome playing the harp and pipe.

And his face was kindly … until Sorcha poured his glass full and caught him staring at her bodice.

“If not
the
luckiest,” a graying contemporary of Elford agreed, “you’re
one
of the luckiest, milord. Seems like only last year she sat upon Wulfram’s knee.”

Sorcha knew some of the men with her future husband. They’d frequented her father’s tavern and considered their former comrade still one of them. “The Wyrds are kind to us both,” Sorcha demurred.

It was true. At Cynric’s side, she felt safe, protected from the world. But was she prepared to pay the price for such protection?

Once she finished serving, she took her place by Cynric. As a maidservant passed her by with a platter of roast beef, Sorcha took a piece with her dining dagger. The cold peas she’d had at her home no longer kept hunger at bay. The meat was succulent, but she was glad she still had good teeth.

“Would milady have some bread as well?”

It was Rhianon from the yon side of the board. There was a hunger in her and Tunwulf’s eyes as well, but it was not for food.

Rhianon pushed an untouched loaf, still warm from the oven, toward her. “I feel as though I’ve been cast aside like a broken doll,” the golden-haired woman complained. “I told Tunwulf that if I’m to sleep with the servants, better I should retire to my own bed in our haws below the rock.”

Rhianon had so looked forward to participating in the court that Sorcha felt a pang of pity for her. Had Sorcha been an exiled princess, she, too, would likely crave a chance to regain some of that prestige. “Perhaps I can speak to Her Majesty about moving you to the ladies’ quarters,” she offered, although everyone knew Rhianon was Tunwulf’s mistress
and
rumored to be a witch. Poor Lunid would faint dead away when she found out who, or what, Rhianon was.

“After all, I was the one who suggested to Cynric that you should attend the Princess Eavlyn.”

Sorcha doubted the same ladies who belittled Princess Eavlyn would accept Rhianon even
after
she was wed to Cynric’s son. Persuasion and wealth was what evened one’s lot at Hussa’s court. Tunwulf, who spent as freely as he plundered, had neither.

“Not
all
the power is in the king’s hall,” Rhianon added with a meaningful look. She slipped her arm through Tunwulf’s and gave him a smile that kindled fire in his gaze. Elsewhere, too, if Sorcha was any judge.

Rhianon utterly bemused Sorcha. She’d feel foolish melting into a man’s side like butter to a scone. Such was her state of nerves that, should Cynric move suddenly, Sorcha feared she’d squeal. The moment his glass was emptied, she set about filling it and left the table to refill the flagon for the others.

On her return, Hussa tapped on the table with the hilt of his dagger. When that couldn’t be heard over the revelry, he had an attendant give a short blast on the horn. As silence fell upon the room, he motioned toward the Elford company. “I have heard that Thane Cynric’s bride-to-be is gifted in music and song.”

Sorcha could feel a multitude of eyes seeking her out. Blood burned a path to her cheeks.

“She sings like a lark, milord,” Cynric replied. He ushered Sorcha away from him. “Go on, my love. Sing for the king.”

Sing for the king. It was something she’d dreamed of, being a court musician. But singing in one’s mind and actually standing before the imposing Hussa of Bernicia were two different things. Sorcha steeled her knees as she walked forward to take the harp Mildrith held out for her. It was Eavlyn’s harp, and most likely the princess’s request.

“Would the king have a favorite song?” Sorcha asked, marveling that her voice didn’t squeak through the anxiety clenching at her throat.

“I leave the choice to you, milady,” Hussa replied. Fierce as his reputation in battle was, when the king smiled, his rugged face with its wide mustache was handsome. Not even his robes and finery could hide his warrior’s physique. Running into such a man, shield to shield, would be akin to striking a stone wall. Some even claimed he had stone for a heart … at least toward his enemies.

Sorcha strummed the harp, allowing the vibrations to reach into her soul. Music could be soothing or stirring. She needed the first for herself and the latter for her audience. “Then I choose a story of Sigheld and Aelfhilde … in Cumbric for our guests and then in our tongue.”

The murmur of approval rippling through the hall silenced as she stroked the harp.

“To Avindr, thane of thanes and his great meadhall, such that children of men ere had heard and to his queen and bed companion, Gillaug, was born a princess of beauty great. The hand of their Aelfhilde was sought by warriors, their names sung in glory, their conquests rivaled by none in Valhalla’s halls….”

Sorcha threw herself into the tale. The princess was abducted by an evil giant and held for ransom. She played the weariness of Sigheld and his servant when they at last reached the rope bridge leading to the giant’s hall. Then the low thunder of the giant’s approach as he met Sigheld and the high-pitched fury of their blades. There was a full stroke, high to low as the bridge collapsed, sending both to their deaths. Stillness turning to dirge, when Sigheld’s man returned to Avindr’s meadhall.

But as he sang the stirring eulogy for the fearless warrior, into the hall came Sigheld, leading a horse with the beautiful princess on its back. Sigheld had caught himself in the thick of branches growing out of the cliff side and climbed back up to the top, where he found and rescued the princess.

The Cymri listeners came to their feet in wild approval first, having first heard the happy end of the song. But Sorcha’s fellow Saxons soon followed. The shouts, clapping, and stomping of feet continued until the rafters shook loose their dust. Sorcha handed over the harp to a beaming Mildrith and approached the king’s table, where she curtsyed.

“And so,” she shouted, turning with a magnanimous wave of her arms that finally dampened the noise so she could be heard, “I dedicate my story to our own brave warrior prince and the gentle woman he is to marry two days hence.”

Again approval shook the hall, this time in honor of the betrothed prince and princess.

Cynric fairly beamed when Sorcha returned to the seat beside him. “You have your mother’s gifts, milady.” He took her hand to his lips again, caressing it with them.

The musicians had started playing once more. Hering led Eavlyn to the area in front of the dais, a signal for others to join him.

“I would consider it an honor if you would agree to dance for me, milady,” Cynric whispered in her ear.

Still flushed from the excitement of performing for the king, Sorcha nodded. “My pleasure, milord.”

Try as Sorcha might, it was not as it had been with Caden on the beach. Though she met his eyes, Sorcha danced apart, only touching Cynric’s callused fingers when he reached toward her. But when their fingers met, there was no tingle of awareness. Cynric was no Caden.

“I am the envy of every man here tonight, milady,” Cynric told her.

Sorcha smiled, but it was Caden’s voice from their frolic on the beach that she heard.
Dance is much like courtship … the touch is as close as the lovers dare to get, for others are watching.

For that very reason, that others were watching, Sorcha didn’t flee. Instead, she twirled away from the thane, lest he see the regret knocking at her heart. Or was it panic?

And when she came back to him, Cynric circled her waist with his thick arm.
Their hearts are already entwining, beating drum to drum in a melody of love.

The beat within Sorcha’s chest was anything but. She grew clammy, cold beneath the hungry stare of her husband-to-be.

Alas, this is as close as you and your betrothed will come to the joys of the bower.

And this close, Sorcha thought she’d faint from anxiety. Try as she might, she could not see herself with Cynric as any more than the child she’d once been to him. It had been easy to contemplate wifely duties when he resided miles away in Elford. But here, close enough to touch, to see that he looked at her as a man, not as her father’s friend …