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

  “The blacksmith set it for me, since you were not here,” Walter told her, sagging back heavily onto the bench. “I fell into a wolf pit when I was out searching. I would still be there, had a woodman not heard me yelling and the dog howling. What is the news? Do you know anything? Is Christina safe?”

  “I see her safe,” Elfrida said, wishing she had more to tell him. Walter had lost weight, and he was as gray-skinned as an old man. His brown hair was lank and filthy, his gray eyes shadowed and hopeless, and he looked as if he had slept in his torn and grubby clothes. Under the bench crouched the big, crossbred wolfhound he would have given Christina, looking as woebegone as its master. It whimpered as Elfrida snapped her fingers, and it did not wag its tail.

  “We will find her, Walter, I swear.” Smiling with a certainty she did not feel, Elfrida knelt and looked at the splint, sniffing discreetly. The injury smelled clean, she noted with relief. “Are you in pain?”

  “It aches, but that is nothing. Tell me what is happening, what you have found.” He clenched his large, raw-knuckled hands into fists in his lap. “Where are you searching next? I will go with you.”

  On horseback with a cracked bone? I think not. The smith is a good bone setter, but even he cannot do miracles if Walter will not be still. Yet how can he be?

  “If he does not hold us up he can come,” said Magnus quietly beside her, in the old speech. “That is what he said, is it not?”

  Elfrida nodded and turned to Walter. “I will tell you everything.”

  First she set a fire going in the hut and made Walter a tisane while Magnus brought him dried fish and berries to eat, then turned his attention to his own men. Leaving Magnus calling orders and Walter tossing most of the fish to the dog beneath the bench, Elfrida set off to her bees to tell them the news, muttering protective charms as she ploughed through the snow.

  She was hurrying back from her hives when Magnus appeared in her kitchen garden. He had the priest, Father John, with him.

  “Hola, Elfrida! The priest here understands me. He will translate for Walter, because Walter trusts him.”

  “I see,” said Elfrida, although she did not. It was not that she disliked the holy father, but she and the small, bald priest tended to avoid each other—in a perverse form of mutual respect, she now acknowledged.

  “Walter trusts me as his priest,” Father John explained in her village dialect, as if he sensed her disquiet.

  Magnus broke the awkward moment by slapping his good hand against her roof eaves, dislodging a flurry of snow onto his legs. “It saves the timbers cracking,” he said, straight-faced, kicking his way free. “Roofs can collapse with all this snow. Shall we go in? My cook is asking if he can use your fire, and some of your villagers are lurking ever closer, hopeful of a meal.”

  Elfrida made herself smile. At least this way she could cast a protective spell on everyone once they were inside her home. “Indeed. Why not?”

  They walked round the hut to the doorway, where Magnus called more orders. As Walter was being helped indoors, the cook hauled his cauldron off a wagon, and Magnus’s men brought firewood and water.

  “I need to collect a pail from the garden.” Elfrida made the excuse and smoothly detached herself from Magnus and Father John and the milling folk around her threshold. She sped off smartly with a pocketful of salt, trailing it round the outside of the hut in a circle. Busy with her charms, she was glad when Magnus fell into step with her.

  Will he kiss me again? The thought flared through her head like a shooting star, then was gone.

  “Do I intrude?” he asked.

  “I have just finished. We should talk.” She felt safer in her own lands, her own space, and safe to admit more. “I have other things to tell you.”

  “Things that you do not want to say to Walter or Father John?”

  Magnus was shrewd, and Elfrida could not fault him. She touched his right arm—she could do so now without feeling strange about his missing hand. “Do you mean it about Walter joining us? He is much determined to keep searching.”

  Magnus dipped and snatched a handful of snow, crushing it between his fingers. He did so to avoid looking at her, Elfrida realized.

  “I am still thinking on that.”

  “But you said he could—”

  “That was before I watched him totter indoors.”

  “Poor Walter! He has no luck.”

  Magnus grunted and tossed the snowball into the lengthening shadows. “Not so unlucky. He could have broken his neck in the pit. Tell me the rest of what the widow said about our tall, scrawny monster.”

  “He carries a metal object, about the size of a hen, with many wheels and gears.”

  “An astrolabe,” Magnus said at once. “A connection to Outremer again, together with his love of spices.” He smiled at Elfrida’s questioning look. “An astrolabe is a sky reader, a wonder of Arab learning. They are intricate and expensive and much prized by magi. Peter gave one to his Alice.”

  “Do others use such devices?”

  A streamer of hair fell across her face as she spoke, distracting Magnus afresh. Seizing the chance, he caught the floating, fiery, down-soft mass and moved it away from her eyes, thinking he should ask her for a lock of it. Why not? She could only say no.

  “Magnus?”

  Free of its veil of hair, he could see her pale, anxious face. He wanted to snatch her up and kiss the worry lines from her forehead but forced himself to do nothing. He sensed that she was holding something back, that whatever had troubled her so greatly in the forest was still with her. The warrior in him warned that he best knew what it was.

  “What troubles you, Elfrida?” he asked her directly. “We are closing in on our quarry.”

  She shook her head. “There is more.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  She took a deep breath and started. “Spices, strange devices, many towers, very tall, very thin, comes and goes without sound.”

  “And a good horse,” Magnus put in. “He must have excellent horses to move as he does.”

  “He has rings, too. The widow saw his hands once, without gloves. He wore a golden ring with the image of a flower on his right hand, and a silver ring with a pearl, and then a third ring on his left hand. A gold ring, embossed with a star,” she added quietly.

  Magnus clashed his teeth together in rising excitement. “A crusader for sure, and more!” Unable to contain himself, he snatched Elfrida up and whirled her about, laughing as her trailing feet dislodged snow from the nearby tree branches. “We have him! I know him! I know who it is!”

  He scowled as a strong finger and thumb pinched his earlobe very hard. “Would you care to explain yourself?” Elfrida breathed into his other ear, “And put me down before my feet are frozen?”

  Stifling another roar of laughter, Magnus deposited her in a heap of snow beside a water trough, then raised his hand before his face, as if in fear. “Mercy, mistress.”

  “Idiot.” Elfrida pulled herself to her feet by his belt and ignored the snow clinging to her rump as she narrowed her eyes at him. “Who is this creature, then?” She tapped his chest with her fingers. “Give me his name.”

  “He is a man, no more.” Her small, warm hand was vividly reminding Magnus that he was also a man. “That flower ring you spoke of, I have one, too, at home. The flower mark is really a cross, a symbol popular with crusaders. They often wear it on a ring. He has been on crusade! And the second ring, the silver and pearl, that is the badge of the Denzils. They all wear them as a sign of family loyalty.”

  “Denzil.” Elfrida closed her eyes and said more, in her own tongue. “Who are they?” she asked, giving him another cool, assessing look.

  “I know them, but I have no part of them,” Magnus said swiftly. “The Denzil clan are mercenaries and outlaws. I know their leader, Gregory Denzil. The man owes me the life of his warhorse.”

  “You fought together on crusade?”

  “Alongside, while on crusade. You do not fight with
the Denzils! I would not trust my back to Sir Gregory, even now.”

  Magnus was heartened. He and his men could ride to the keep of Gregory Denzil, get the fellow drunk, talk of crusades and old times, and wait to hear more of Denzil’s tall, skinny kinsman.

  “It will be easy.” He grinned as he finished outlining his plan. “I do not know this mystery Denzil, but one of his kindred will know him, never fret.” At ease with God and the world, he braced his peg leg against the hut wall so he would not take a tumble as he brushed the snow off Elfrida’s skirts, a useful excuse to touch her.

  But his skittish redhead had already stepped back and was swiveling to and fro on the tamped-down path, seeking something, like a hound with an elusive scent.

  “You understand not!” she burst out. “It is bad, very bad!” She said a word in her own dialect, and her face blazed with color. “Evil!”

  * * * *

  Magnus was staring at her as if she was possessed, but he did not flee any more than when she was sick and overwhelmed by the fit demon. She struggled for the words to explain.

  "Take him and yourself into the church, dear heart," whispered a voice in her head, her mother’s voice. "Your tongue will be free there."

  She extended her hand to Magnus, who clasped it in his warm, huge paw without any hesitation. She glanced at his bare, ringless, gloveless fingers and wanted to ask about the crusader ring and his home, but all language of the old speech was lost to her for the moment, in her dread of what they were opposing. Instead she turned and began to slide her feet along the path, taking care not to stumble in the lowering light. Another instant later, she was plucked off her heels and snug in Magnus’s arms.

  “Where?” he asked.

  She pointed to the church, with its plain, barrel-vaulted, stone nave and spindly, wooden tower, and he set off, striding as steadily as any man with two good legs.

  She laid her head on his shoulder and smelled his scent of ginger and apples. Spices, she thought, and then dismissed it. She had known from almost the first that Magnus was no Forest Grendel, however ill his looks.

  And were his ugly, scarred face and kind eyes so bad? She kissed his shoulder, and he snorted and said something in his own language, kissing her on the mouth with those soft yet scarred lips.

  We are becoming like Walter and Christina, caught kissing all over the village.

  The image both warmed and pierced her. Guilty and alarmed for her sister, she began to squirm a little, and he set her down beneath the low porch of the church.

  “What manner of man is Gregory Denzil?” she asked in the old speech as he tugged his clothes into rough order and she rearranged her head veil that had fallen halfway down her back.

  “Is he handsome, you mean?”

  “No, I do not mean that,” said Elfrida patiently. “But is he brave, good, honorable, generous?”

  “Peter called him a bear”—he mimicked a dancing bear—“and someone to watch closely in battle.”

  Greedy, solitary, savage, and untrustworthy, Elfrida translated in her mind. “Does he have many men?” She touched the church door, and it opened to her.

  “Some followers, many like him. I would not have them on my lands, nor take them on as men of mine.” Magnus held the door and stood back for her to enter first, inhaling deeply. “The smell of a church, the incense, it is always good to me.”

  “And to me.” Elfrida trod carefully through the rushes, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the shadows and dim light within the nave. A single beeswax candle burned above the altar, shining out like a tiny star. Elfrida thought of stars and suppressed a shudder, but Magnus had felt her tension. He stroked her arm, almost as if he were gentling a horse.

  “I am a good witch,” she whispered.

  “Let us go closer to the altar,” Magnus suggested. Even if he did not appreciate her dread, he was keen to help, she thought.

  With each careful step as they edged their way past the heavy pillars of the nave, Elfrida felt the protection of the place seeping into her. At the final pillar before they came to the altar itself, she stopped and leaned against it. This was her church in her land. Now she could speak.

  She drew in a breath when Magnus surprised her by sinking onto his haunches, then sitting, in a clumsy, ungainly fashion, amongst the rushes on the floor. He stretched out a powerful arm and, before she could react, tugged her down to join him.

  “This is a quiet matter, is it not?” he said as she protested, draping one long leg over both of hers and lifting and shifting her so she was settled on his other thigh. He was leaning with his back against the pillar with her on his knee. When she protested this was church, he replied, “We are here for God’s work, so the Almighty will not mind. What else do you know of this mysterious Denzil?” He lifted her chin with his hand and looked directly into her eyes. “I would not have those shadows in your face, Elfrida. This is a man, and we will track him, find him, and recover your sister.”

  “He may be more.” Elfrida made the sign of the cross to protect herself and Magnus. “Do you remember that he wears a ring embossed with a star? That is what the widow called it, but I know what it is. His ‘star’ is a pentagram, an inverted pentagram. That is a symbol of dark magic. He has two towers, one in the north, one to the west. The north is the place of the devil and the west is the place of the old religion, where spirits and elfkind live.”

  In the semidarkness she could not see Magnus’s expression, but she felt him shrug.

  “I have felt this man’s mind and intent. And the wolf that came at us, Magnus—”

  “Dead now,” came the flat response. “My man took its pelt for a cloak.”

  “Listen to me! He has taken Christina and the others for evil, for dark magic. I know this!”

  “Perhaps he has, but the Forest Grendel is still a man, one who will bleed, and if those towers are wood, they will burn. Never fear, Elfrida! The Denzil clan are great ones for show, and this Denzil will be no different. Gregory himself lives in a stone keep surrounded by a moat of water. Very handsome it is, too, especially in the summer when the water is blue against the yellow stones.”

  Magnus said more, but she did not hear him above the thudding of the blood in her ears. The blue was surely another sign, for blue was the monster’s color.

  “We must ride out for this castle at first light tomorrow,” she said.

  “We will ride tonight.” Magnus braced himself against the church pillar and rose with her still in his arms. “Father John will come, for he knows your sister and can speak to her. But you must stay here—to do other would be foolish, too dangerous.”

  “Yes.” He nodded once, as if it was already decided. “You must stay here with Walter. He is not fit to travel either, although he is a man.”

  Although he is a man. Do men have parts of iron and gold, that they are so special? Stunned by what had been chosen for her, Elfrida touched Magnus’s twisted, ugly face, feeling his serious intent while part of her wanted to slap him. “Have you heard nothing of what I said?” she demanded, when she had breath to speak.

  “The castle of Gregory Denzil is not a place for a woman, even a witch. And you can do your magic here.”

  His warrior arrogance hit her hard. Terror and frustration stormed through her, and she lashed out blindly, shouting at him for being so earthy, so simple headed.

  Still he did not drop her, rather tightening his grip and saying in a calm, clear voice, “Believe me, I know these Denzils.”

  She could no longer move her arms and legs, could make no sign against his bullheaded folly. “I shall curse you!”

  She flinched as she felt his hot breath directly on her face. “You would have me seek your sister with your ill wish working against me?”

  “No, but you must understand! There are more weapons than swords and axes, and you cannot stop them. I can.” Elfrida broke off, hating the way she could not see Magnus, only the glimmer and whites of his eyes. How could she argue or even reason wit
h someone whom she could not see?

  “Let me down, and let me go home,” she said wearily.

  She started a second time as Magnus’s lips brushed her forehead. “I am sorry,” he murmured. “I know you long for your sister and want to help her, but the Denzils are hard and brutish men.” Still cradling her, he began to shuffle to the church door. “I intend to visit their keep, but God knows if I will be allowed to leave. Do you not understand? I could not bear such a fate to happen to you.”

  “It may not happen to either of us.” I will follow their tracks. I will charm their horses to gallop slowly. I will not be left behind! “Release me, please.”

  “Elfrida—”

  “I must tend Walter, and have things to do at home. Release me.”

  They had reached the door. He lowered her to her feet, and she fled quickly, without looking back, leaving him stranded in the church.

  Chapter 8

  “Why must we go tonight?”

  Magnus looked at his angry, pinched-faced second-in-command and jerked his head at the standing crowd of villagers huddled in Elfrida’s hut, all eating his food and prodding at her leather bags. In a moment, some potion would be spoiled or spilt, and the whispers would become shouts and angry complaints.

  “We need to throw this mob off our trail, and their mouthpiece.”

  Mark slyly glanced at Elfrida, serving stew in bowls, but Magnus nodded to Walter, eating again and chatting loudly in the dialect of Top Yarr.

  “If any of those come with us, especially that one, all surprise will be lost.”

  “But why now? It is as black as Saint Maurice out there!”

  “The men know? They are ready?”

  Mark nodded.

  “Excellent.” Magnus clapped his second on the shoulder. “Brace up, man! This way, our leaving is not expected. The villagers have no idea. We ride off before any of them have wit to follow.” He smiled grimly. “The dark will cover our tracks.”