Loveweaver

by Tracy Ann Miller

  She held her breath, let it out in an uncertain sob. “The refuge ... your longings ... crave.”

  Control evaporated the instant he sheathed himself. A swift, blissful, almost painful thrust into an impossibly tight channel. He pierced Llyrica’s plush warmth, felt it encompass him, draw him into the depths of solace. She lay quivering in that timeless stillness, her sharp, broken gasp stretching into a shuddering breath. Arching beneath him and grasping at his arms, she pulled on him.

  With sweet mindlessness and a consuming force, StoneHeart withdrew to thrust again, deeper this time, breaching a barrier within, bringing an explosive release and pain defying completion. And then ... an untimely awareness.

  He moaned, still pulsing inside Llyrica, and collapsed on her, his lips at her ear. Ah, she was breathless, a soft pallet on which to spend passion. But he could not enjoy it, as he was a melange of emotions. Roughly, he kissed her and pulled her close.

  “Goddamn your proof,” he said. Ire fused with unwanted tenderness, his embrace both of dismay and anger.

  Llyrica was limp, shivering. “My proof, indeed.” She whispered past his ear. “You now see how Xanthus did not bed me, since you are the first.”

  If time made sound, it would be the rhythm of water dripping from Llyrica’s gown, draped over the bench. A small pool grew on Slayde’s marble floor. Another moment before fleeting comfort faded, StoneHeart held Llyrica, a woman transformed from perceived whore to maid to bedded wife in the instant it took to impale her. She shifted in his arms, a warm nestling, a soothing balm and a confirmation she was his. He glimpsed a life where a man could choose that which he desires, whether woman or profession. Could cease to give import to the opinions of others. Could dress as he wished, smile openly, find joy in creative avocation.

  I would not have been a man of war. I would have been a man of science, an inventor, a builder. A lover.

  Would that he could fall, at will, into Llyrica’s embrace, submit again to the unequaled pleasure he found in her softness. Ah, the relief to know she had never been used by another man. Forgive me if I hurt you. That as I deflowered you, I did not do so in tenderness. Perhaps one day ...

  StoneHeart forced an end to these musings. Llyrica was to blame for his stone heart chipping away about the outer edges. He ground these frail longings to dust and rolled off of her, averting his gaze from the sight of her passion-flushed body, anxious eyes and fan of gold hair. With a hasty tying of braccas and the tossing of a blue cloth to cover her, Slayde arose from the scene of his downfall. He marshaled desire, anger and confusion into cool, familiar self-command.

  “Never mind telling me why you have done this.” From his wide-legged stance, he now dared a glimpse down at her. A mistake. Her eyes were aqua pools of uncertainty. “You have won me as your protector against yon flesh peddler. I now demand, as your unwitting husband, to know who you are and from whence you have come.”

  Her delay in replying bespoke a careful choosing of words. “I am of Hedeby and made my living with my aunt Solvieg as a loomstress, and Broder was my trouble-making brother. The money purse held years of our savings. These fabrics, which have been our marriage bed, are woven by Solvieg’s hand from yarns acquired from all lands, as are my garments. The braids are mine. I will tell you now, though you may not believe it, but the braids on your old tunica and those of your men, were also woven on my tablet loom.”

  He recalled tales of Hedeby’s hideous weaver, the purchase of his endowed braid and his pagan belief in its power. “Inconceivable. The world is too large for such chance occurrences. And you do not fit the description of the reclusive loomstress.”

  “But Solvieg does. A deformity of birth kept her under a cape, hidden from prying eyes. She wove the cloth, and I, the braid.”

  He continued to deny the incredible. “Why has your aunt taken credit for your work? Would you not want the acknowledgement of such a craft?”

  Another hesitation, Llyrica pulled the blue cloth up to her neck. “The endowed wovengoods are highly sought. As a deformed woman, Solvieg was left in peace to weave. She feared that it would not be so with me, that I would be ... hounded.”

  Slayde heard this as a half-truth, an evasive answer he had come to expect from her. “Hounded is an odd choice of words. Is this why you also are unmarried until now? Solvieg kept you hidden? I suspect you still hide, and from more than a slave trader. Tell me now from what.”

  Her only reply, a small gasp, escaped Llyrica, inciting as much frustration in Slayde as it did curiosity. Damn if his emotions did not run amok with this woman. His composure snapped and he dove for her, yanked off her cover of blue cloth and stretched out over her soft nakedness. Catching her hands, he pinned them beside her head. Her lips and eyes competed for his attention.

  “I weary of your silence, that says nothing, yet portends trouble. You dare collude with Byrnstan to trick me into marriage, yet deem withhold your past from me. I demand to hear it all, vixen wife.”

  “Continue, husband, with this tenderness and endearments, and I will refuse you nothing.”

  Aye, he was harsh and regretted the look on her face: fear of him and of her own hidden history. Disappointment at the lack of wedding afterglow. Yet her brittle sarcasm veered Slayde back to a sore subject.

  “I see, you need sweetness though you well know my nature renders me incapable of it. Did you suddenly expect I would fall under your influence as easily as did the sleepwalker?” he asked.

  “You have fallen, StoneHeart,” she said haltingly, “though you need come to see it and believe it. Not only was it my braid, but also my song of strength and protection you took on your campaigns against the Vikings. Though you did not know it, you have been under my influence for the two years since you purchased my braid.”

  A prickling now rippled up Slayde’s spine as superstition waylaid rational thought. He counted on prayer and God’s intervention, but so too the good omen of wind in his sails and the luck of his notched sword. He believed that a spell can be woven into a cloth and had counted heavily on its good fortune. The next question was bound follow.

  “What song have you sung into the braid of my new tunica?”

  “One of love, and which resulted in just this, that we be joined.”

  Subdued to silence as the events of the last three days ran though his mind, Slayde let another moment pass. He focused on the soft, warm body beneath him and the blush and cream complexion of Llyrica’s face. As a victim to her love spell, he conceded a temporary truce on the matter of her hidden agenda, with a resolve to unravel it in time.

  Releasing her, he again took to his feet. “Arise and get dressed. I will send the priests in to inspect our issues spilled here upon the cloth.” A ventured downward glance spied the wet spot. Queasiness arose at the sight of her spilled blood. “They will see my seed mingled with evidence of your torn maidenhead, proof enough for Xanthus that ours is the legal marriage. It is also proof enough for me.” He departed, though he wanted to stay.

  Llyrica’s secret was within his grasp and he thought of a way to win it, though the cost might be his heart and hers.

  The sleepwalker was his key to Llyrica. And StoneHeart had the key to the sleepwalker.

  The heat of a rare day of sunshine, tainted with the smell of mud and ripe cornfields, drifted through the window on a breeze, called Llyrica to the view. Guttural shouts and grunts from the garrison yards attended the hiss of flying arrows and spears flung at targets. Horses whickered as they exercised, the sounds of their hooves a dull thunder on wet earth. The pounding of hammers at the riverfronts and the tang of tar in the air gave notice that ships were under repair.

  Llyrica’s tablet loom stretched between two benches in the upper chamber of Slayde’s house. It lay at rest behind her with the fruit of a fortnight’s work gathered at the stone wall. Woven to trim babies’ tunicas and endowed with her songs of strength and good health, the lengths of finger-width braids were neatly coiled, ready for sale. Each possessed a
n intricate pattern worked in three colors.

  Kneeling at the window, Llyrica massaged her neck before resting her chin in her palms, her elbows propped on the stone sill. Scanning the hundreds of men at drill below, she hoped for a glimpse of StoneHeart. She looked for his head of black, unruly hair, the only mar in his outer model of self-possession. She saw no sight of him. This tightness in her chest increased with each passing hour. Thoughts of Slayde’s heated touch, which at first since their coupling, struck her swift and hard at random moments, now had grown to a constant flutter in her stomach. His abandoned pallet, now her bed, possessed his scent of mint, a tantalizing reminder of the sleepwalker’s tenderness and the StoneHeart’s rough desire.

  “Are you uploft?” A welcome voice called from the ground floor. Byrnstan, also unseen for many days, had returned.

  “Aye, Father, I come.” Llyrica moved from the window of her unavailing search, and wrapped the rolled braids in cloths to make three large bundles. A look from the loft assured her it was safe to toss them down. She descended the long ladder and found the priest below, hurried toward him with a greeting kiss. Mud soaked the hem of his gray longa tunica, his white hair was wild and windblown. “What news of my Broder?” she asked.

  Eadgyth prepared the priest a cup of tea. She had been summoned from Benfleet with another thrall, Wynflaed, to the service of StoneHeart’s new wife. Llyrica bade Brynstan sit on the bench and take the fragrant drink. She sat beside him.

  His sword clinked on the marble floor. “I have none specific to your brother. The retinue and I traveled to where they chased the youngbloods to shore, asked from ham to ham in the area if any had seen him. The vandals had been seen dispersing in all directions and were cursed for their misdeeds. Some I had opportunity to question under the watchful eyes of their disapproving parents. But Broder was not found among them, nor did I receive more than nays and shrugs as to where he might have got to.”

  “Better news than if he were dead.” She rubbed an ache between her brows. “My thanks to thee for your efforts. Especially when the tension grows between the Saxons and the Danes. I will go into East Anglia myself and look again when StoneHeart is through with Haesten.” Her face heated when she said the warlord’s name and she lowered her eyes to avoid Byrnstan’s stare. The time drew near to confront her father and she planned to accompany ealdorman Slayde’s army up the River Lea. She had hidden on a ship before.

  Byrnstan must have interpreted her blush as a reference to Slayde. “StoneHeart has little time to attend a new wife. He labors with training recruits during all but the few hours he sleeps.”

  “No need to excuse him. I had not expected much, but I did not think he would leave his house to spend his nights in Eadwulf’s hall. He yet considers a woman under his roof a bad influence. Tell me, Byrnstan, where does the sleepwalker sleep? Has he merged with the StoneHeart as you hoped, or has he found a softer pallet than mine?”

  The priest took her hand. “His old habits will die hard, but he will never find a bed softer than yours. I am disappointed that my remedy has not come to pass. Since he knows of his sleepwalking, though, he ties one hand to a post at night that he stay put. Now I am returned, I have assured him I will continue to conceal his malady.”

  “Has he spoken of me?”

  “Other than to ask of your everyday needs ... nay. As I have said, he toils with military and political matters ...”

  “I know the StoneHeart cares naught, though he has provided for me well. But I am bereft without the sleepwalker.” She shared this careless confession only with Byrnstan. A nervous gesture, she touched the silver fillet that held a scyfel to her head. She was unaccustomed to this mark of a married woman, this fine white silk that floated over shoulders and flaxen hair, now in a soft braid. Pinned with silver brooches, she wore a new sleeveless cemes made of pale green and a cyrtel of lavender silk. The dress was gyrdeled with her silver chain and festooned from shoulder to shoulder with strands of amethyst beads. Between her breasts, hung her cross and her vial of oil. She stood, retrieving the bundles of wovengoods, then handed two to Byrnstan for him to carry. “I am ready to take my braids to Athelswith.”

  Byrnstan drained his cup and set it down. “You will begin again to earn coin from your talents. I will be glad of it.”

  With Llyrica’s peach cloak in place and garrison quickly left behind, they followed the beaten path through London to Athelswith’s house. The air was thick, smelled of the iron works and the offal of humans and livestock. Between the huts, houses and churches, women hoed in gardens and craftsmen labored in stalls. On the road, shoppers haggled chickens for honey, eggs for salt, coins for bone combs and silver brooches, buckles and bracelets. Pigs and dogs rooted through garbage. Most folks were dressed in homespun linens and woolens, well worn from the ravages of life and work, though Llyrica noted prosperity hung in rich fabrics on an occasional passing magnate, scholar, noble woman, or clergyman.

  She blessed the cloak that helped hide her from the stares of the townspeople, but it also aroused their attention. Two women with chickens under their arms pointed at Llyrica.

  “See there, the Viking woman that StoneHeart married in haste,” said one.

  “He done it to save her from a band of slavers,” replied the other. The two women, their voices loud, followed behind Byrnstan and Llyrica. Heads of other bystanders looked up.

  “A hero indeed, but ealdorman Ceolmund’s own son, wed to a Dane? They say StoneHeart has hell to pay. It do not sit right with some, him a Viking fighter and all.”

  “He will be rid of her quick enough, I would guess. I cannot see he would let a Viking woman ruin his standing.”

  “Some may not see the wrong in Saxons and Danes marrying ...”

  “Indeed, the town sees its share of these mixed unions ...”

  “But I find the idea a disgrace. She comes from nowhere, to boot.”

  Tempering painful doubts incited by this gossip, Llyrica stopped, her abrupt turn causing the two women to stumble into each other. Hens squawked and a small crowd gathered.

  “Each of you take one of these.” Llyrica pulled two coiled braids from her bundle and pressed them into the women’s free hands. “Into each braid I have sung a prayer of love, protection, strength and health. Sew it on a child’s garment. It will be a blessing. If you do not believe me, ask StoneHeart yourself. The braid he wears I also made, and it has kept him safe from harm.” And my braid keeps Broder safe, I pray.

  Byrnstan took her by the elbow, led her away.

  “It is a gift of the Songweaver,” Llyrica called over her shoulder. Villagers closed around the women, murmured unheard comments in astonished tones.

  “Your actions prove you more Christian than they,” Byrnstan chuckled. “So do not listen to their wagging tongues. But what did you mean, ‘Songweaver’?”

  “’Tis the title for which they will soon know me.” Llyrica raised a hand to the priest’s confused look. “Is it true that I spoil StoneHeart’s good name? Is his marriage to me so hated?”

  “Not hated, but indeed stirs things up. Slayde is man enough to weather the rumors. Make him more so a man, I would think.”

  “This is why he avoids me.” Llyrica awaited a reply as they walked on. They reached the active harbor of the Thames. “Your silence is my answer.”

  Ships crowded the docks and vendors called out, enticing passers-by with imported ivory and brass, spices, furs and lathe-turned wooden bowls. A horn of ale could be had for less than a penny.

  The sight of the water reminded Llyrica of another subject. “You vow you saw Xanthus and the BoarsJaw sail away a fortnight ago?”

  “We followed him up the estuary to the sea. He and his rough lot are gone for sure with the money purse and a sizable payment from StoneHeart.”

  “Then I have seen the last of him.” Llyrica sighed with relief, but recalled the rancor on Xanthus’ face when handed the purse. He fairly exploded when given the report of her coupling with StoneHeart. Th
e haste of the transaction, which ensued, did not afford opportunity for her to reclaim her parent’s rings, and she had stood by mutely and watched them go with the money purse. She could not ask for them. Her tie to Haesten must yet remain unknown, even to Slayde, lest word leak to the warlord of her identity before she saw her deathbed promise fulfilled.

  I have come, father. See how Mother has won, has kept your son and daughter from you. She died by your cruel hand. Now my husband, your adversary, StoneHeart, has come to throw you out. There is your justice.

  “I know it brings you ease to know Xanthus is gone.” The priest led Llyrica onto the wooden walkway of the harbor, steered her around a pile of rotting fish guts. “Ahead is Athelswith’s house. She knows we come today and will be astonished with what you have done.”

  “I give you my thanks again, for selling my wovengoods to her, ere I would not have bought the yarns from which I wove these braids. The coin of my first sale will go to you for alms, father.”

  He patted her hand with a laugh.

  Standing straight and built of golden oak, Athelswith’s half-timbered house sat separated from the filth and confusion of the harbor by a clean stretch of beach and green slope. Its location would have provided a tranquil view of the Thames, save the tall fence that surrounded the house and the armed men standing guard at the gate. Once opened, Byrnstan led Llyrica up a stone path, which curved around sunny gardens tended by thralls. Byrnstan called out a hail to the hall door, and was answered by Athelswith herself in scarlet brocade, come to welcome them in.

  The interior was light, free of smoke and filled with samples of her profession as draper, and textiles from the far reaches of the trade routes. Llyrica’s eyes feasted on the abundance of gilded tapestries, folds of plaids and stripes, embroidered silks and damasks, thick wools and rarely seen velvet. Athelswith also dealt in pelts, evidenced by the rolls of fur in an open chest. The Crone’s Cave had been a similar, but lesser storehouse of fabrics.

  Urbane, aloof, Athelswith offered them seats on a cushion-covered bench at a marble-topped table. “You have brought the braids?” Her brittle tone proved her not unaffected by the presence of her former intended’s new wife.