by Nina Mason
Her brow furrowed under her tousled fringe. “The knight you’re supposed to bring back for the tithe?”
“Aye,” he said, twinging with guilt. “The very one.”
Jenna licked her lips, which were as pale and drawn as her face. “What did she do to him?”
“She commanded him to kill his beloved, who was one of her scouts, and to bring her the lady’s heart as proof he had carried out her orders. After the deed was done, she banished him from the Thitherworld for evermore—but not before putting a curse on him.”
“What kind of a curse?”
“A curse that ensured any woman he henceforth cared for would die.”
It was his turn to fall silent and look away. He could not bring himself to tell her the rest. If he did, she would despise him as much as he loathed what he must do. And, if she detested him, she would never agree to be his.
“I want to ask you something, Jenna.” He swallowed to moisten his dry mouth. “It might seem too hasty, but I should like you to wear my ring on your left hand, as if we were betrothed. Is that too much to ask?”
“No,” she said. “I’m glad you asked it, and will proudly wear your ring, but would prefer you place it on my finger yourself.”
She held out the ring, locking him in her gaze. Taking it from her, he placed the ring on her finger before lifting her hand to his mouth. He pressed a kiss to each of her knuckles. “Your heart belongs to me now, as mine belongs to you.”
* * * *
Jenna felt wonderful with Axel’s arms around her as they cantered through the glen on Odin. So wonderful, right, and romantic. He was a dream come true; an honest-to-goodness knight on a charger; the man she was meant to be with. She was now more persuaded than ever that she’d come to Rosemarkie to free him from Queen Morgan.
She just needed to convince him of her purpose—and figure out how to achieve her aim.
It was a beautiful night for a ride. The sky was dusted with billions of stars and a blanket of mist covered the ground. Though they were the only ones in the glen, she’d never felt less alone.
As they rode around, he pointed out several plants and told her their names and uses. One was pennyroyal, an herb once used to terminate pregnancies.
“I saw the recipe in your mother’s grimoire,” he said. “It is important to get the dosage right, because too much pennyroyal will kill the mother as well as the unwanted bairn.”
“I don’t believe in abortion,” she replied, horrified to know her mother’s spell book contained a formula for inducing miscarriage.
“Nor do I, as a general rule. But, in some cases, it is the best thing for all concerned.”
Sure she could never kill her baby under any circumstances, Jenna looked down at her hand and the carved wooden ring gracing the third finger of her left hand. A few days ago, she had worn another man’s ring on that very same finger. The wrong man’s. Now, she wore the right man’s ring—a magical one he had carved himself.
“Tell me the story you mentioned earlier. About the unlucky ring.” She looked up at him. “What were the names of the lovers again?”
“Sigurd and Brunhilde.” He smiled down at her. “Though, it behooves me to warn you not to expect a happy ending.”
His statement unsettled her until she realized he was referring to the story, not their relationship. At least, she hoped that was what he meant.
“Sigurd was a warrior, a member of the royal family, and a descendant of Odin,” he began. “He was raised by a blacksmith named Regin, who made him a special glaive from pieces of one owned by Sigurd’s father. Sigurd used the sword to kill a dragon called Fafnir, who, like all dragons, guarded a great treasure. After roasting and eating the dragon’s heart, he was able to understand the language of the birds around him. They warned him that Regin would one day betray him, so Sigurd beheaded the blacksmith and claimed Fafnir’s treasure, which included an enchanted ring. He put the ring on his finger, unaware it was cursed to bring misfortune to its wearer.”
Jenna relaxed against him. Though they were riding bareback, she felt secure with his body anchoring hers. The air was cool, but she felt warm. Warm, safe, comfortable, and acutely aware of his every movement.
“After slaying Fafnir, Sigurd came upon a castle, where he awakened Brunhilde, the beautiful warrior maiden whom Odin had cast into a deep sleep inside a ring of fire. After Sigurd and Brunhilde fell in love, he gave the ring to her, along with the promise to return so they could be married. On his journey, Sigurd was tricked into marrying the Princess Gudrum instead, after her mother, a witch-queen, gave him a potion that erased Brunhilde from his memory.
“Then, the princess’s brother, Gunnar, tried to win Brunhilde for himself, but he was unable to cross the wall of flames surrounding her castle. Sigurd, having forgotten his true love completely, assumed Gunnar’s shape and courted Brunhilde in his place. Believing that Sigurd had abandoned her, Brunhilde agreed to marry Gunnar, even though she did not love him. When Brunhilde discovered that she had been tricked, she was both angry and heartbroken. To get her revenge on Sigurd, she had him slain and then, in her grief over what she had done, threw herself upon his funeral pyre.”
Jenna frowned up at him. While her brain appreciated the poignantly tragic prose of Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton, her heart vastly preferred Jane Austen’s happy endings. “I can’t believe he forgot her.”
“He forgot her by magic and trickery, not by choice.”
“Still, it just seems like his love would have been strong enough to overcome the enchantment.”
“I do not think it works that way, Jenna. Not in real life, leastwise.”
“Maybe not, but if that’s the type of love stories you heard growing up, I don’t wonder that you avoided marriage like the Bubonic Plague.”
He smiled down at her, his Viking eyes twinkling in the moonlight. “I avoided marriage because I believed my first duty was to my king and country. As a warrior, it was safer to be unattached. Married men were more open to attack.”
“How so?”
“The English were ruthless, Jenna. They would break our spirits by any means necessary, no matter how savage or inhumane. They hung our women from the walls of captured castles in open cages. Day and night, in all weather, like livestock. How those poor creatures survived such shocking mistreatment is beyond comprehension. But this I can tell you with surety: any man who attempted their rescue paid for his valor with his life. The king himself only got his wife and daughter back through a prisoner exchange.”
“My God,” she said, deeply appalled. “I can’t imagine living in such barbaric times.”
He bent to kiss the top of her head. “In that case, I strongly advise you to avoid crossing paths with Queen Morgan or any of her undead English soldiers of fortune.”
Chapter 9
Just before dawn, Axel left Jenna with a heartfelt kiss and his promise to return to her the following nightfall. This time, she trusted him to keep his word. Closing her eyes, she tried to go back to sleep. Tried, but failed. She was far too keyed-up. Last night had been so amazing, she was still high on the lingering fumes.
After their ride in the glen, they’d made love and talked until it was time for him to go. He’d explained the runes on her ring signified partnership, happiness, loyalty, and marriage, and that he was making more protective objects to place around the cottage. He’d also shared some of his adventures with Robert the Bruce and, in response to her request for a Viking tale with a happier ending, he told her the story of Volund the smith.
The tale started out as a promising love story. Volund, a princely goldsmith who fashioned exquisite rings, fell in love with a spirited Valkyrie, who came to him in the form of a swan maiden. Things started to go downhill when his new wife abandoned Volund to resume escorting slain Viking warriors to Valhalla.
As he grieved her loss, Volund was abducted by an enemy king who imprisoned him for refusing to marry his daughter. The story hit a low point when
the hero got his revenge by murdering the girl’s brothers and fashioning their body parts into grisly jewelry, which he presented to his unwitting captors. In a final twist, he forged himself a pair of golden wings and flew away to resume the search for his wife.
“You call that a happy ending?” she’d asked at the conclusion of the tale.
“Aye, when compared to Sigurd and Brunhilde. Do you not agree?”
She did, and enjoyed the story despite its morbid undertones. Axel was a natural-born storyteller with a deep, soothing voice she could listen to all night.
He’d been gone less than ten minutes, and she already missed him. Giving up on sleep, she threw off the covers, wrapped her woolen cloak around her shoulders, and padded into the kitchen. After putting on the kettle to boil, she fired up her laptop, which she’d set up on the kitchen table after returning from Cromarty. She’d started compiling her C.V. yesterday, but it still needed work.
Parking herself before the computer, she called up the file and got busy. By the time the kettle whistled, she’d completed a rough draft.
While enjoying a cup of tea and some buttered toast, she polished her résumé and compiled a list of references that included the head librarian at the university and a couple of her favorite professors. Surely, they would say good things about her.
She finished her CV and her breakfast, located Mrs. Emerson’s card, and dispatched the e-mail with a cordial note. That done, she showered, put on a pair of gabardine trousers, a button-down silk blouse, and a floral scarf. No sense in not looking smart—especially when she stood a good chance of running into future colleagues.
While showering, she’d decided to visit the nearer library in Fortrose to check the rental ads and continue her hunt for the ballad of Tam Lin. Call it women’s intuition—or witch’s intuition, perhaps—but her gut told her that fable in particular held the key to freeing Axel.
If, God forbid, he failed in his quest, there was no way in hell she was going to stand by and let him be tithed to Lord Morfryn—whatever he might say about it.
After pulling on her favorite tweed blazer, she grabbed her purse and made her way to her car. The scenic coastal drive, which took under ten minutes, ended at a stucco bungalow the color of farm-fresh butter. An iron fence surrounded the property, which boasted an ocean view and a pretty back garden. A small gravel lot offered limited parking near the library’s front porch.
Jenna drove through the open gate, parked where she could, and, while bolstering her confidence with lungfuls of brisk sea air, strode across the gravel to the covered entrance.
The holdings were relatively small, so it took no time to locate the folklore section. Her pulse quickened when she saw the collection was more extensive than the one in Cromarty. Maybe, just maybe, one of them contained the fable she sought.
She ran her fingers along the spines, hoping one of the books would speak to her. One of them did. A book titled English Folktales. She overrode the impulse to pull the book down from the shelf. Tam Lin was Scottish, not English.
Moving on, she took down the same book she’d been reading yesterday when Mrs. Emerson interrupted her. Skipping the “Nursery Stories” and “Stories of Animals,” she turned to the section marked “Faery Tales.” She skimmed the legends in search of anything to do with retrieving a human captured by the faeries. Most told of encounters with helpful faeries, offering nothing to aid her cause. Then, she found a story titled “The Farmer’s Wife.”
Excitement quickened Jenna’s pulse as she delved into the tale of a farmer’s wife who’d been carried off by the faeries, but still returned every week to ready her children for church. One Sunday, she revealed how he might win her back from her captors. Following her instructions, the farmer, who loved his wife very much, waited until Hallowe’en, then hid himself in a copse of firs near where she’d told him the faery procession would pass. At long last, the cavalcade appeared, but the husband, terrified by the unearthly sights and sounds assaulting his senses, lost his nerve and let them go by. When the last of the faeries vanished from sight, he heard his wife cry above the din, “Dear husband, why did you not do as I told you? Now, you and the children have lost me forever.”
Disappointed by the unhappy outcome, Jenna speed-read the next few stories until she came to another involving a faery abduction. In this tale, the stolen wife appeared to her grieving husband on the road near a moat one night. “At the stroke of midnight, stand at the center of the moat and call me,” she told him. “I will then appear among several of the fair folk, but shall have on the whitest dress of any in the company. Take hold of me, and do not forsake me, however frightful their attempts to deter you. Keep hold of me until cock crow, when they will vanish and I shall be safe.”
The husband faithfully followed his wife’s directions. As soon as he took hold of her, the moat caught fire and the sky boomed with the most terrible thunder imaginable. Frightful birds and beasts came out of the fire toward him, but did not daunt his courage. He held onto his wife until the roosters began to crow, at which point, the fire went out, the storm cleared, and all the faeries disappeared. His wife, now as naked as the day she was born, remained in his arms. Giving her his coat to wear, he took her home.
As goosebumps crept down Jenna’s arms, she closed the book. The fire on the moat, the terrible storm, and the terrifying birds and beasts the faeries manifested did not sound easy to endure. If she did somehow discover the secret to freeing Sir Axel from bondage, would she also find the courage to see the task through?
Unsure, she returned the book to the shelf and moved down the row. Something kept pulling her back to the first book she’d been drawn to. Surrendering to the attraction, she withdrew the book from its place and opened the gold-imprinted red cover. Her hope spiked when she saw the illustration on the title page—an art-nouveau engraving of a young woman at the edge of an old well. In her hands was a flaming sword. Written on a ribbon underneath were these words: “Janet casts the flaming sword down the well.”
Might it be Tam Lin’s Janet? With trembling fingers, she turned to the contents page and scanned the list of stories within.
Perhaps her intuition had failed her, because nothing sounded even remotely like Tam Lin. Optimism waning, she pressed on.
Finally, near the end of the list, she came upon a title similar to the one she for which she’d been searching. “Tamlane” instead of “Tam Lin.” A different version of the same story, perhaps? She turned to the page number listed and, with her stomach aflutter, began to read.
The story told of Young Tamlane, the son of the Earl of Murray, and Burd Janet, the daughter of the Earl of March, who’d long been in love and were engaged to be married. But, when the long-awaited wedding at last drew near, Tamlane disappeared without a trace.
Weeks later, Burd Janet went into Carterhaugh Wood to pick some broom, despite being warned not to go there. As she gathered her flowers, Tamlane suddenly appeared beside her. When she asked where he’d been, he replied, “The Queen of Elfland has made me her knight. While hunting one day, I fell asleep and, when I awoke, found myself in Elfland.”
“Elfland?” Janet sputtered in disbelief. “The place where the fair folk dwell?”
“The very same,” said Tamlane. “And though I am a favorite of the queen’s, I fear it is myself she plans to tithe to the Lord of the Netherworld this Hallowe’en”
As she read the words, chills rippled over Jenna’s skin. Except for the part about their previous engagement and the circumstances under which Tamlane was taken, his story was uncannily similar to Axel’s. Eagerly, she read on.
“Tell me what I can do to save you, Tamlane,” a desperate Burd Janet replied.
“Tomorrow, Faery court rides through England and Scotland. If you would take me back, you must wait by Miles Cross and, with Holy Water, cast a protective circle all around your person.”
He then proceeded to tell Burd Janet what to expect and what she must do to free him. The following night, a
fter mustering all the courage she possessed, Burd Janet reclaimed her beloved from the faeries.
Jenna, scalp prickling and trembling all over, read the tale twice more before closing the book and returning it to its place on the shelf. It was obviously a more sanitized version of the ballad than the one Mr. MacGregor and Mrs. Emerson had heard, but the information she sought was there. She must free Sir Axel during the Halloween ride; she must not let go no matter what the faeries threw at her; and she must truly love her knight in order to succeed.
She didn’t doubt her love for Sir Axel, but she did doubt her courage. Would she have what it took to keep hold of him even if he turned into a ferocious beast, poisonous snake, or flaming sword? Or, like the farmer who lost his wife forever, would she be too terrified to act when the moment arrived?
Self-doubt settled heavily over her heart. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t brave enough to stand up to William or her father, let alone a malevolent sorceress like Morgan Le Fay.
Her only hope was to somehow fortify her backbone between now and Halloween. If she didn’t, she’d lose Axel forever—and that unhappy ending was utterly unacceptable to her.
Chapter 10
That evening, Axel sensed a difference in Jenna as soon as he stepped across the cottage’s threshold. A quick examination of her person revealed no external change in her. She was still as beautiful as a Valkyrie, even in the unbecoming blue jeans and baggy sweater she’d donned for their nightly rendezvous.
Fear lanced his heart when he realized the shift was in the energy between them. Had her love for him cooled already? As he bent to kiss her, he probed her psyche. Soon enough, he found the culprit hiding behind a barricade she’d erected against him. She still loved him, thank the gods, but she was keeping a secret.
This, he could not permit. Like battle wounds, secrets should not be left to fester untreated. As he pushed his tongue into her mouth, his probe broke down the wall she’d erected against him. What he discovered sent a chill down his spine.