Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read online

  “There are no runes or magic signs cut into the goblet, no gems or magic stones inset within it.” Elfrida closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose. “It is old, made in the time of our grandfathers. It has held hot things.”

  “Blood?”

  “Tisane.” Elfrida smiled at Magnus’s wary question, amused and saddened in equal parts at the way nonwitches thought all magic dark and terrible. “See where the inside is stained dark? That is with tisane. I would say a blackberry tisane.”

  “Not blood and not beer either, like your own good ale.”

  “No.” Absurdly touched by Magnus’s praise, she found herself wishing, for a moment, that she could give him more ale.

  “What?” Magnus asked, altogether too sharp and all seeing.

  “Nothing, eager one! Now let me work.” Confident of her own magic, she took another deep breath and lifted the small bowl-shaped cup with both hands.

  Images rose out of the snow and played across her startled eyes. There was Christina, laughing with her head thrown back, and a dark-haired girl dancing on the spot, blowing into a small pipe. A shadow fell across them both, but they did not shrink back. Rather they stepped forward eagerly, their hands outstretched like beggars at a fair.

  “Christina!” she called in her mind, but the vision faded even as she strained to reach for her sister and for an instant felt as if she flew, as she could when she ate the secret mushroom of the birchwood. She blinked and was looking down from the treetops, east into a gray sky at a hillside of oak trees, and within the oak trees were three strong towers.

  She lunged forward like a hawk, dropping to the tower with the blue door...

  “Elfrida? Elfrida! Are you with us again?”

  She sighed, pinching the top of her nose, forcing her spirit back within herself. It was mildly disconcerting to discover that she was half on Magnus’s lap, her body propped against his barrel chest and her head snug in the crook of his arm—his arm with the stump, she realized.

  “Are you well?” he asked again, touching her forehead with his good hand. “Your eyes rolled back into your head, and you were twitching like a hunting dog on the scent.”

  “I was hunting,” she replied. Deciding she was too comfortable to stir from where she was, she talked quickly as the scene vanished into the whiteness of the snow. “He has them bewitched in some way, perhaps with a love philter, perhaps with a handsome, pleasing familiar.”

  “Have you a familiar?”

  She scowled at the interruption, conscious again of the itching in her hair and across her face and arms. “I do not need one,” she said sharply. “But listen to me now, for once the sight leaves me, I do not always remember it well.”

  Magnus nodded and brought a finger to his lips, his promise of silence.

  “To the east of here, within the forest, there is an oak wood set on a high hill. His lair is there, within three strong towers, three towers, one with a painted blue door.”

  She heard Magnus’s breath catch, but he did not interrupt.

  “I saw my sister, laughing, and another girl, playing a pipe. They were dancing. I do not know if they were together, or if they danced alone, for the beast. They seemed unharmed. I did not see the third, but they were safe and even happy.”

  She felt Magnus’s gasp of relief, and his reaction inspired hers. Overwhelmed to know that Christina was safe, she sobbed aloud as tears burst out of her.

  “Aye, aye, I wondered when it would come to this.” Magnus gathered her closer still, ignoring her fever and spots. When her weeping subsided, he gave her a clean rag to wipe her face.

  * * * *

  He believed her. He had seen magic in Outremer, where men had put themselves into trances and driven nails into hands without pain or blood. He shouted to Mark, a single order, “Stop!” and listened as Mark blew his horn to signal to the rest of his men.

  “Does the monster hunt alone?” he asked Elfrida. She was rubbing at her forehead with the rag, and he took it from her to stop her bursting her spots. She frowned but not because of the itching pox.

  “I do not know,” she admitted.

  “No matter,” he said easily, glad she had sense enough not to claim more than she did and not wanting her to blame herself. That was the failing and limit of magic, he knew—it never showed everything.

  She squirmed on his lap and rolled off him into the snow.

  “I must set a charm to find this oak hill.” She rose to her feet, seemingly unaware of how she swayed in the still, crisp air like a sapling in bad weather. “All oaks, and very ancient, with lichens hanging from them. And mistletoe!” She brightened at remembering, the glow in her small, narrow face showing how pretty she was, without spots.

  She checked the position of the sun and began to walk southeast, tramping stiffly through the snow. Then she turned back.

  “Your men know to let me pass?”

  “They would not dare delay a witch.”

  She smiled. “No, only you would.” She turned, took another step, and stopped.

  Magnus did not want her to leave, either. He told himself it was because his men were even now calling back through the trees, “Nothing!” “No track!” “Nothing here!”

  I need her skills, and though she will not admit it, she needs mine.

  He limped toward her and offered her his good arm. “May I escort you? I have seen a mage’s house in the East, but never a witch’s home.”

  He caught a glitter of interest in her eyes, quickly suppressed as she jerked her head at his horse and gathering men. “Do they come, too?”

  “It will be quicker,” Magnus said easily. “Once we know where to seek your sister, we can set out on horseback.”

  “I do not have a bathhouse nearby.”

  “A barrel of water and hot stones will do as well.”

  “And food and hay? I cannot magic those.”

  “My men have brought both, even oats.”

  She glanced at the gray skies and shook her head. “There will be more snow tonight. More! I have no spells against that amount of evil weather!”

  “And your sister is indoors.” He waited a moment, for her to see the good in that, then added, “If we cannot hunt in more snow, neither can the beast.”

  She nodded and took his arm, saying quietly, “Thank you.”

  They walked forward together.

  Chapter 4

  Elfrida was weary, with aching eyes and limbs, by the time she had slogged through the snow to her hut. Longing for a drink and rest, for a warm barrel bath with hot stones and a long sleep in her own bed, she thought of Christina. That was enough to compel her to keep going, to straighten her spine and to step inside, warning the ever-solicitous Magnus to remain outside, for some magic has to be secret to work.

  Perhaps she spoke a little harshly, for Mark muttered something and rubbed fiercely at his red nose, but Magnus was as sanguine as ever, merely instructing his followers to set up camp. Closing and barring her door, she could hear them shifting things and listened to the hum of chatter as the villagers came out of their homes to find out what was happening. As the scent of baking salted fish stole through her small hut, she fought down hunger and other earthly distractions by making a lengthy invocation to the Virgin. When the sounds outside became muffled, she knew that it was time to begin.

  First she swept her floor and dragged the stone quern she used as an altar into the middle of the hut. Around the altar she made a circle of precious salt and purified herself with sprigs of rosemary and melted snow water so cold it made her gasp. She dared not complete her magic naked, lest one of Magnus’s men was peeping at her through her thatch, but she put on a clean, plain robe and combed the worst tangles from her hair. She set a small fire going in the center of the salt circle, scattered more rosemary upon the altar, and was fully ready.

  She placed the monster’s cup outside the salt circle, to the north where demons dwelled, and stepped within the circle. Taking a honeycomb, she broke it
in half, placing half in the monster’s cup and wrapping half in another clean cloth as an offering to the saint of the forest. She raised her hands in prayer and said aloud,

  “Forest beast and forest saint, keep my sister safe and bright,

  Let no harm come to her through day or night.”

  After that she took wax and began to carve and shape it with a silver knife—an old knife, and the most magical and precious thing she owned.

  She chanted as she carved and shaped, allowing her fingers to fashion a thin, long-limbed figure. Briefly she wished for a lock of his hair, or a piece of claw, to add to the figure, but then she lost herself in her chanting.

  “As the wax will burn, so the snow will burn,

  As the wax will burn, so the heart of the monster will burn,

  As the wax will burn, so the snow will melt,

  As the wax will burn, so the monster will melt,

  The wax will make a path to his door,

  Within a time of three he will release my sister, and the others,

  His heart will be glad, and they will be glad,

  All will be well.”

  Swiftly she dropped the wax figure into her fire, repeating her chant until all was lost in the flames. Then she left the fire to burn down to ashes and stumbled outside, limping slightly because she was light-headed from the fumes and the power of her magic.

  “It is done,” she called out to Magnus in the old speech. “We shall find Christina and the others within a time of three.”

  “Three? Three hours, days, weeks, months? Three years?”

  Elfrida shuddered at the thought of three years. “That is as the magic wills it. For me, it would be better if it were three hours, but then it would be dark, and snowing. The spell needs time to build.”

  * * * *

  Magnus stopped digging out a section of ditch and rested his arms on top of the shovel, not because he needed to rest but because he wanted to look at her. She was as pale as the snow, with great shadows under her eyes. One of the itching spots on her forehead had burst, and she looked as weary and determined as an old warhorse.

  “Good,” he said. “You have done all that needs to be done and that can be done.”

  Digging in another part of the growing ditch, Mark mumbled and pointed at her with his spade.

  “He hopes you have magicked your itching pox onto the beast and so save us all some trouble,” Magnus translated, not adding that Mark had also said that she looked like a withered doll with woodworm.

  “I am a healer, a good witch, and my powers come from God,” she replied at once, frowning at Mark. “It is not wise to work in that way, and curses can rebound.”

  Magnus nodded, thinking that a few ill wishes and curses would have been useful, all the same.

  She glanced at the half-finished ditch. “You are doing well here.”

  “It will keep wolves out, at least. We shall finish tomorrow.”

  She turned in a half circle. “I heard the villagers earlier.”

  “They vanished once we started to work at the digging, Walter included. He is going out into the forest again tonight to keep looking for your sister.”

  “But it will be night soon.”

  “And did nightfall stop you from looking?” Magnus asked mildly. Taking advantage of her silence, he went on, “There will be hot water soon, for your bath.”

  Just in time, he stopped himself from adding that the barrel was large enough for both of them. His legs and back were aching, and to share a warm tub with a warm, young female—even one covered with spots—would be no hardship.

  She touched her forehead with her fingers, a gesture he now recognized as a sign of anxiety. “I should search the woods with Walter. I know the paths better than he does.”

  “The beast has been cunning and careful so far,” Magnus pointed out. “I do not think he wastes his evenings in a snowy forest.”

  “No, not when he has my sister as a plaything!”

  Magnus ignored her temper, hearing the raw fear beneath, and he responded to that. “Bathe for her,” he said, trying another tactic to settle the jumpy lass. “Soothe yourself and send your peace to her.”

  It sounded good to him, a magic of sympathy, and from the look of brief longing that shadowed across Elfrida’s face, she clearly thought so, too.

  “I could do that,” she said slowly. “But comfort and a knowledge of tenderness comes largely through touch. I must stroke her veil and think of her. It would be excellent if Walter could handle her veil as well.”

  Her face suddenly flooded with color. Mark, pausing in his digging again, stared at her with obvious interest until Magnus spat an order at him to get on. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Sex magic,” she muttered, blushing harder.

  Magnus wondered if he had misheard, or misunderstood—the old speech was a second tongue for both of them and so misunderstandings were more than likely. “I beg your pardon?”

  She repeated a jumble of words from which he understood “Walter,” “Christina,” and, “but such magic is hard to control.”

  “Walter and Christina would make it?” He wondered how that could be, since they were so cruelly separated.

  “No, others would act on their behalf. Then the rite would bring them back together.”

  “Like a bow and bowstring, you mean?”

  “Not really.” She shook her head. “But it will not work.”

  No, even smothered in spots, no right lass will fancy me for any carnal magic. Magnus glowered at Mark until he shuffled farther off with his spade. If he was not going to be doing sex magic, then why should any of his men?

  “Come, let me take you and your sister’s veil to the bath,” he said gruffly. He had instructed his men to tip oatmeal into it, too, so one of them would have some relief tonight, at least.

  * * * *

  It was snowing again. Elfrida watched the large, fluffy flakes drift down from the warmth and privacy of her bath and tried to imagine being snow—cool and white and untouched by anything. She tugged the rough curtain draped about the wooden tub farther apart and spotted Magnus lingering nearby, his back to her as he paced slowly to and fro.

  How dare he stand guard for me as if I am helpless!

  Her irritation was as swiftly replaced by a pang of tenderness. He had allowed her to bathe first, and the water was delicious. It or the oatmeal had stopped the furious itching across her body for the moment so that when she dipped Christina’s veil within the tub and smoothed it with her hands, she felt as pretty as her sister.

  Be easy, Christina, easy and safe, little sister.

  She yawned, allowing herself to drift and for the water to support her. It was an embrace, winding about her waist and flanks, cupping her breasts.

  Much like a lover, eh?

  Elfrida felt herself blush. She had not meant to blurt out the idea of using love magic quite so crudely, but the old speech was so very earthy. She must have used the wrong word, for Magnus’s warm, brown eyes had widened like a young boy’s and then become instantly guarded. It made her sad to realize how many times he must have been taunted by others about lovemaking, when he was so wary now.

  “What would you be like as a lover, Sir Magnus?” she murmured, scooping water over the tops of her breasts.

  She peeped through the hangings and the falling snow at her ungainly but not ungentle knight. There were women to whom such ugliness as his would be an attraction, but she was not one of those. Accepting that aspect of her nature, she regarded him with guilt-free eyes.

  Sir Magnus. A warrior who feared nothing, save ridicule. His courage moved her, and he was an intriguing man, with his crusader past and learning. For the rest he was tall and straight and, even now, well made, with strongly muscled arms, legs, and flanks. Certainly he was a giant amidst the villagers but not naturally clumsy. Aside from some understandable stumbles, he managed his stump and peg leg nimbly enough. In some profiles, as he was for the moment, glancing about the camp wi
th steady, careful watchman’s eyes, he was even handsome, or you could see the remains of strong, stark good looks. His dark, curling hair pleased her, and his rich and mellow brown eyes were a beautiful shock, reaching out to her from the devastation of his face.

  Their eyes met briefly, and she felt a glow of pleasure deep in her breasts and belly as he clearly saw and acknowledged her, raising his good hand.

  “Good evening,” she murmured, glad that he was still with her. He was not the kind of man who abandoned others and, snug within this warm, enveloping bath, she could admit that not always having to be the strong protector, the witch of her village, was a relief. He understood her loss—she sensed his sympathy as keenly as she sensed the endless, relentless falling of the snow.

  He did not grab or scratch, either, and his touch was gentle. In his arms she had felt safe and comforted. She sensed that he liked her, too, and as more than a friend or companion in a quest. Surely he desired her? Being a virgin, she was not entirely sure, but she thought he did—his eyes had certainly widened when she blundered over “sex magic.” She wished, briefly, that she had met him years ago. Magnus would take his time in the act of love.

  She smiled at the idea and leaned back against the smooth, wooden boards of the tub, closing her eyes as she imagined stroking her hands up and down Magnus’s long back. Would he be smooth or hairy?

  “Hairy, like Samson,” she said aloud and opened her eyes. The scene about her now was white and gray, the twilight behind the tumbling snow turning from dark-blue to black. The plain, heavy hangings set around her tub arched over her head, but a few flakes spilled through the tiny gaps and fell, hissing, into her bath.

  Snow had fallen on Magnus’s hair, she noticed, when he next stepped into the gap between her bath hangings, snowflakes making glints of silver amidst the strong, black curls. She saw him shake once, like a boarhound, and the sparkles flew into the evening air.