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

by Lindsay Townsend

  “Why are they not wary or at least interested?” she asked him, leaning against him as if sharing a loving confidence. “And have all the able men gone out?”

  “There will be some in the stables and gatehouse. For the rest, Denzil likes to keep his troops busy and out of mischief, and you are a girl and I am a cripple.”

  “They have seen you fight!”

  Magnus laughed, and his shaggy hair curls shook. “Bless you for that! But no, they saw me wrestle, and they believe Denzil allowed me to win.” He jerked a thumb at the three lounging against the sun-warmed wall like thin, gray cats. “I know the kind. I was one myself.”

  Never, Elfrida thought, flexing her hands beneath her cloak. She glanced at her knight, hoping he would not spot her concern. It would be bone-grindingly cold, idling out here.

  “I have marched and watched in harsher climes than this. Sun as hot as a griddle stone, night as dark and bitter as a cave.”

  He never missed a thing. “We must lie down soon,” she warned.

  “No doubt you have a charm to keep us warm.”

  Elfrida smiled. “I will do my best,” she answered sweetly.

  She did her utmost as she had promised, finding a spot in full sun, scraping away the snow, and banking it round into four shallow walls. She then tore at dead honeysuckle shoots on the trellis and gathered them. Magnus nodded at some dead rose stems, and when she nodded, he ripped at them, seeming oblivious of the thorns as he collected an armful.

  By now the three lads were feigning disinterest and tossing snow balls at each other. But they watched closely as Magnus prodded through the snow with his peg leg and gathered pebbles and stones.

  Glad he understood her intent, Elfrida quickly made a fire and began to heat the stones. She found a sweeping brush abandoned by a frozen pond and used that to jab the hot stones out of the fire and out on the frosted earth, making a rough bed of rocks. The youths’ curiosity changed to leers as she swung her cloak off her shoulders onto the stones and Magnus did the same with his cloak. Then, with the fire still crackling and burning, she and Magnus lay between the cloaks and pulled the hoods over their heads.

  They lay together in a snug embrace, hearing their guards sniggering.

  “We could complete this picture and make love.” Magnus shifted against her in a way that might suggest lovemaking to anyone watching.

  Elfrida peered out of their tangle of cloaks. “It is working! They are going inside!”

  “A beast with two backs that you cannot see is no amusement.” Magnus pressed his hand on her shoulder. “Let us wait and be sure.” He patted her rump. “We could always...?”

  “No.”

  Later they left their cloaks, filled with snow to look like bodies, and set off deeper into the garden, hiding their tracks by retracing their earlier footprints, then by walking along the sheltered side of the northern outer castle wall, where there was no snow. Magnus was checking here and there for guards and for a postern gate, and Elfrida glanced at the sky. It was not yet noon, but fast approaching it.

  “She leaves by the main gate?” Magnus asked.

  Elfrida nodded, forcing her teeth not to chatter. Once the heated stones had cooled, she had been chilled enough. Now, without cloak or hat, her hands and feet were numb, and her body trembled with cold. “What is it? Do you see her?”

  “Not yet, but that is what we want.” He pointed ahead, into shadows, and Elfrida almost stumbled as her legs threatened to buckle in sheer relief. There, in the corner of the deserted pleasure garden, was a small stone arch and gate, a postern—their way out.

  Chapter 16

  He found the holly bush and not a moment too soon—limping beside him, Elfrida was already half frozen. Again, Magnus regretted having to bring her, but he knew she would never consent to remain behind and, most important, her sister did not know him. He had tried to learn some of her dialect but not enough to explain to a strange, frightened girl that he was a rescuer, not a beast. A token of Elfrida’s might be interpreted the wrong way, so for now, it must be Elfrida herself.

  “Sit down.” He drew his shivering witch into the heart of the huge holly where it was dry, and he unpacked the bundle as swiftly as his numb fingers would allow. The fact that she did not shove him aside to do the task herself he took as a poor sign, but he kept his words cheerful. “Fresh clothes here, so we shall soon be warmer. I have mead, too.”

  He had no women’s things in the pack but had filched two sets of woolen tunics and linen braies from a stripling squire called Hugh, who fancied himself a person of good taste. Elfrida stared at the braies and shook her head. “I cannot wear those.”

  “You will move more freely,” said Magnus cunningly, “and it will be a good disguise. We shall seem two packmen.”

  “Ripe for bandits, then,” came the tart response, but she peeled off her less-than-perfect gown and did not protest when he rubbed her down smartly with it, seeking to dry her before she re-dressed. She tied the braies as she might a girl’s belt, which made him grin, and the green wool tunic was too long in the sleeves, but she had more color.

  More fight, too, when she launched herself at the living circle of holly as he was rolling his shoulders in his dry tunic and retightening his belt. He caught her round the middle. “Shoes?” he reminded her.

  “But she comes, she is coming now! I can sense her!”

  “And we shall pick up her tracks.” He buffeted her lightly away from the holly thorns and waved two bag-like socks in her face. “Put these on first.”

  She stroked the cloth and wrinkled her nose. “This is not wool.”

  “It is woolen felt, from my manor. We know how to make it there.”

  “It is warm,” she said in wonder and began to pull them on. He handed her a leather shoe next and showed her how to wrap pieces of wool about her feet and legs.

  It took longer than for himself, but he did not care. The laundress would not be hurrying in this fine, bright, windless day, and he wanted Elfrida to be warm.

  He handed her a short leather cloak, a riding cloak truly, but it would be long enough on her. “Tuck your hair under this cap, also.”

  She widened her eyes at the dull, russet hood but did as he asked. Packing their damp things into the old, gray cloak he had brought the changes of clothes in, she looked puzzled when he tucked two more pairs of socks and lengths of wool down the front of his new tunic. “For later, if we need them,” he explained and kissed her, briefly. “You make a pretty lad. The hat shows off your freckles.”

  She had been taking a mouthful of mead, and she choked, her mouth quivering in amusement. “You should see me in summer for freckles.”

  “Oh, I will,” said Magnus. He parted the holly branches for them to set out in pursuit of the trudging laundress, who had passed by their hiding place with no sign of noticing them.

  Her feet were beautifully warm. The snow was crisp and fresh, not damp or gray or slippery, sparkling in the sunlight and a joy to walk on. Her tunic and leggings were far easier to manage than trailing a dress. Indeed, she would be sorry to give them up and was already bargaining in her mind with Magnus to keep them.

  Magnus was tracking the laundress, staying back so she could not hear them and would not see them easily while he traced the woman’s clear, single trail. Elfrida sped behind him, admiring his serviceable leather cloak, his working shoulders and hips, his smooth, long-legged stride. How had she ever thought him clumsy?

  About them, adding to her feeling of a festive day, a day where surely Christina would be discovered, safe and well, the woods thronged with life. A tiny wren beaked amidst some still-brown leaf litter. A squirrel ran up a pine tree in a blur of red tail. Deer slots showed up clearly on her left side. She shook Magnus’s arm, and he turned and nodded.

  “Aye, the hunt have missed those. They are a long ways off. I heard their horns, very faint, off over that hill of beeches. Better for us that they did not spot them.”

  He smiled and, stretching o
ut his hand, rumpled her cap, as if she was a lad. She grinned, feeling very young, as if the world and everything in it was made new for them. “Happy?” he asked, grinning like a lad himself. “So am I.”

  They kicked on, a blackbird complaining about them out of another holly, and a small, unseen animal rustled at them behind frosted bracken. Elfrida paused to bow in respect to an ancient elder then had to scamper to catch Magnus as he crouched and slid down a steep slope, sitting on his behind.

  “Easier than pegging my way down this,” he explained. “Your woman did the same.” He pointed to a set of parallel tracks.

  “But she will see our tracks and know we are following.”

  “Only on the way back. She will not know who we are, and even if she guessed, whom would she tell?”

  Elfrida tried to imagine the timid, broken-skinned, chapped-lipped laundress braving the havoc of the great hall to speak to the wiry, weapon-laden Gregory Denzil, trying no doubt not to stare at the red wart on his forehead. She failed in her attempt. “You are right.”

  She saw the flash of his grin before he turned about and marched on.

  They approached another slope, and now the trees were all oak and lime and then solely oak, ancient and wide girthed, with spreading branches hung about with frosted lichens. Here the laundress had shortened her already slow stride and kept stopping for rests. Elfrida touched a place where a circle of flattened snow showed where the woman had rested her pack. She sensed fear. “We are getting close,” she murmured, straightening and listening intently, reaching out with her mind beyond the trailing lichen and sprays of mistletoe.

  Mistletoe. Now she had seen one green-and-white plant she saw more, clumps and clusters of them, swinging from the oak branches, tucked within the oak trunks, trailing above Magnus’s head. Their white berries looked like milky, dead eyes, and she shuddered. He watches through these.

  Magnus, blind in that sense, too honest, too much of the middle earth of this world, was already climbing, butting through the thin snow here like a Viking ship on a raid. Speeding up, he was already touching his dagger, checking his tunic for other knives. She hurried to catch him, slipping once in her haste.

  “We must take care,” she warned. “We are close.”

  In answer, Magnus pulled a sprig of mistletoe off the fork of a tree and dangled it in his fingers. “I should rush and catch that woman before she screams the wood down.”

  He turned, and she grabbed at his hand, crushing the mistletoe between their fingers. The waxy insides of the berries stuck slickly to her thumb, reminding her again of death. “He does not need that kind of alarm. Listen to me!”

  Elfrida stopped, struck again by the strangeness of the place. No birds sang here, no animals lingered, and the sun cast misshapen shadows. She flinched, a picture forming in her mind of a small wooden watchtower with a single blue door. The wings and bones of ravens were pinned to the timbers of the tower.

  “Things are very wrong here, very amiss.” She seized her own strongest amulet for protection and tore it over her head. “Please, wear this for me.”

  He submitted as she slung it quickly around his neck but then was off again, striding forward. He crested part of the hillside and instantly dropped to his hands and knees, motioning to her to do the same.

  “Look.” He pointed to the wooden watchtower on the hilltop, surrounded by oak trees and mistletoe. “That was once a hunting tower for our Norman lords, I warrant, and with a blue door besides.” He chuckled, his eyes and face alight with victory. “And there she goes, our washerwoman.” Speaking, he gathered himself to leap forward and snatch the laundress before or as she reached the tower.

  “Magnus! What do we do with her?”

  “Why fret?” He waved off her question, seeming amazed by it. “You worry overmuch. We must get on, finish here, and get back. Even those Denzil guard lads will get suspicious in time, so we cannot linger.”

  “But can you not feel it?” She had felt this expectant, tense, terrible sense once before, in the woods close to her home, on the night Magnus had snatched her. “Something is very close, coming fast.” Something terrible.

  “All the better!” he bawled. Before she could stop him, he launched himself and rushed over the hilltop in a flurry of limbs, legs, and a lethal, sparkling-edged knife. The gray bundle he had jammed into the crook of his other arm, hefting it as if it was a missile.

  Trying to keep pace, Elfrida received a face and mouthful of snow. “Dangerous!” she cried, unable to reach him to slow him down even a little.

  “Ha!”

  “Please—” Even as her sense of wrongness trickled a chill of ice down the length of her spine, Elfrida found herself speaking to empty air. Magnus was charging ahead, lunging into the unknown, impossible to stop.

  Yelling, Elfrida chased after him.

  Chapter 17

  He heard Elfrida calling out behind him, heard the note of panic in her cries, but ignored her warnings and concentrated on closing on the laundress before she, too, began shrieking. There was moss growing on the tower, and a half-rotted piece of timber above the doorway sprouted a toadstool, so he did not expect there to be many or any guards, but he wanted none drawing here, either.

  But my little witch is too cautious, and I am no coward. Guards or not, this place should be stormed! Surprise makes all possible.

  The washerwoman dropped her pack by the door and turned to see what was amiss. She had a huge iron key clutched in both hands, but she did not strike out with it, merely dropped the thing into the snow, clapped her fingers to her face and screamed.

  Cursing his peg leg—when he had been whole he had sprinted as fast as Peter—Magnus blundered and ploughed through the snow. He closed the gap between them in under four breaths and slammed her back against the doorjamb, clapping his hand across her mouth. Her eyes watered, wide and horrified, then she shivered once and swooned.

  He laid her on top of her pack and his own gray bundle, curled on her side like a child. Elfrida spurted through a final bank of snow to crouch beside her, her face glowing, plainly relieved that the woman was unhurt.

  Did you think I kill women? Any woman?

  Hot indignation raged through him like a storm of fire then was gone, replaced by cold battle strategy.

  No alarms, no shouts, no arrows or slingshot. Good! But no cries for help. Less good. Pray God it does not mean the worst.

  Hope flickered then faded within him, but he made his voice easy as he helped Elfrida to her feet. “Does Christina sleep a lot in winter? She may be snug within, fast asleep.”

  Elfrida looked up at him with blank eyes and said nothing. She was as pale as parchment, her lips bloodless. Even her hair, escaping in straggled tendrils from the russet cap, seemed dimmed.

  His heart ached for her terror and disappointment. Swiftly, he snatched the key from the snow before she thought of it. “Let us go see.”

  That roused her. “We must beware.”

  “And we will, but let us enter. Sitting on the doorstep leaves us naked to the world.” He turned the key in the lock, lifted the washerwoman into his arms and kicked her pack forward as he shouldered open the door.

  “’Tis warmer in here.” Warmer still when I close this door. Keep things everyday, Magnus, or you will have two panicky womenfolk to deal with.

  He smelt dust, not blood, and that was a relief. He laid the laundress on the dry dirt floor and covered her with his cloak. Straightening, he felt his tightened shoulders unlock themselves still further. Any lurking felon in here would have jumped him by now, or skidded out of the tower and off into the mistletoe wood.

  “Hello?” he called, glancing at Elfrida so she would also call.

  “Christina?” She all but whispered the name, as if in pain.

  Magnus hugged her hard then forced himself to draw away. “I shall search,” he said. “You stay and tend her.”

  She nodded and knelt beside the laundress. As he attacked the wooden stair to the upper chamber
, he thought her heard her praying.

  Please let me find her sister alive, he thought, making that his wish and prayer.

  * * * *

  Elfrida knew she should be doing more.

  Why am I so stunned, so supine?

  Crouching in the half-lit chamber, she leaned closer toward Hedda to check that the laundress was still breathing. “You are safe,” she murmured, hoping Hedda could hear and recognize her voice, if not her words.

  Where is Christina? How can I find her?

  She chafed Hedda’s work-worn hands, glad that they were warming. She untied her cloak with less-than-steady fingers and draped it over the woman, alongside Magnus’s huge cloak.

  I was certain Christina would be here. I wanted, needed her to be here, so badly.

  “I have mead and food.” She shook the flask and then pulled off her cap, remembering that Hedda might believe her to be a boy in her different clothes. As her hair spilled out, she placed the woolen cap beneath Hedda’s cheek as a pillow.

  Where is my sister? How much longer will it be before I find her?

  Hedda kept her eyes closed, though her eyelids flickered, and Elfrida sensed she was conscious. She glanced at the door, wondering if she should lock it.

  The key was no longer there. Magnus had taken it.

  Feeling—rage and temper—flooded back. She leapt to her feet and sprinted for the narrow ladder to the upper floor, tempted to knock it aside and leave him stranded.

  I sensed things were amiss here. I told him to beware. I knew there was danger. Now because of his blundering, we are no further on! Again he does not wait—it was the same as before, with my old gown!

  “Magnus!” She shouted because there was no reason to do other. The approaching presence she had sensed was gone. She knew it had vanished from the lightening in her head but could claim no credit for driving it off. “Anything? Anyone?”