by Georgia Fox
She felt her heart give one weak pulse and then stop.
He went back to his work, leaving them to pick up the broken planks. No one dared argue with him. Not with the strong, quietly determined man handpicked by their beloved Eaorl to take over the management of Lyndower. Nor would they argue with Elsinora while she had that axe in her hands. For once, Elsinora’s judgment had teeth. Someone had actually backed her up and put power in her hands. She felt ten feet tall.
Now why on earth did he have to go and do a thing like that? Her heart resumed a reckless beat to make up for lost time.
He must have some ulterior motive, she decided. Men weren’t kind unless they wanted something. It was a well known fact. But she smiled as she merrily swung the axe over her shoulder and saw the fearful expression on Tom Godwin’s face.
Chapter Twelve
Just a few days later the messenger came from Count Robert Mortain. To everyone’s extreme surprise, he left the long-awaited decision in Elsinora’s hands. She could barely believe her ears, as the herald read the Count’s words to them at supper. He decreed that Elsinora Gudderthsdottir should choose the man she wanted and whichever man lost would immediately give up his claim.
While everyone silently absorbed this stunning development, Elsinora leapt to her feet and embraced the herald. “I think it is an excellent idea,” she exclaimed. “We are neighbors, adults, and should settle this cordially, without Count Robert’s intervention.”
The people of Lyndower, she knew, would be doubtful of her ability to make a good choice. But she’d show them. Fully expecting complaints from her husband, a refusal to play along, she was astonished when he merely looked at her, his scarred face mutely disapproving, and then quickly took himself back up the hill to work on the stone walls. Stryker was more demonstrative and less productive when he heard the news, stupidly ripping up several wooden fences, so she heard, until all the pigs on his property were running free and had to be caught.
But the men must abide by the Count’s ruling. For once Elsinora’s fate was in her own hands.
With her father, Alf and Bertha’s help she assembled a number of tasks the two men must complete to prove themselves strong, capable, and worthy of being her husband. A day was chosen for the competition, everything readied. Even her father felt well enough to sit out under a hastily erected canopy so he could watch the sport at her side.
“Who is your favorite to win?” he asked Elsinora.
“I have no favorites, papa,” she replied firmly, before biting into a juicy apple.
She’d just seen Dominic glance over at her as he removed his tunic and stood bare-chested, flexing his muscles, ready for the first test. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t trying to sway her decision already. Stryker, seeing the look pass between them, removed his own tunic likewise and sighs of appreciation fluttered upward from the watching crowd.
Elsinora rolled her eyes. “Get on with it,” she called out.
For the first test the men each had to carry a yoke with two buckets of water and walk a narrow wooden beam placed on trestles, from one end to the other. The man who had spilled the least water once he safely reached the other end would win a point.
“Balance,” Bertha had said. “Balance and caution will serve Lyndower well.”
Stryker rushed with his usual bull-headedness, twisted his ankle and spilled almost all his water. Dominic went slower and lost none over the rim, but somehow his buckets sprung a leak, a thin trail of water pouring out onto the ground. He set his buckets down before her with an angry gleam in his eyes, but he did not accuse anyone of sabotage. Elsinora bit into her apple again and chewed calmly.
The next test was to mend the broken strut of a wheel, build a fire, and clean out a stall in the stables with the most speed and efficiency. These were tasks set by Alf, who believed that a readiness and capability to perform humble tasks made a good leader of men.
Sadly for Dominic, his hammer fell apart, his saw was blunted with rust and his wood kindling too damp to spark fire. When he tried mucking out the horse stall, and the head of his shovel fell off with a clang, he looked over at Elsinora again, his face livid. Still he made no cry of foul.
The final test was a race, with each man running across the field to a horse, riding to the bay, swimming out to the rocky fingers to retrieve a flag and then coming back on his horse to present the flag to Elsinora. All along the route men were posted to ensure fair play. Some of the spectators ran along to watch the progress, but Elsinora stayed with her father under the canopy and moved from apples to pears and then plums. She was beginning to feel slightly sick by the time they heard the shouts of people returning and then saw the cloud of dust kicked up by hooves.
“It is Dominic,” said her father, quite certain.
But it was not. Stryker’s grey horse came into view and he waved the flag over his head, laughing.
Plum juice dripped down her chin and she wiped it on her sleeve. What the Devil had happened to Dominic? Like her father, she’d been certain he would win. His dark horse came over the hill behind Stryker’s, but it was too late. Another victory to Bloodaxe. The Norman’s flag, apparently, had been seen floating out to sea, not secured to the rock as it was supposed to be. He’d still swum out to retrieve it, but of course this delayed his return.
“There you are, Elsie,” Stryker bellowed, flinging the wet flag at her feet as Dominic cantered across the yard. “Now you see I am the best man for Lyndower. I win.”
But Elsinora’s stomach was twisting in knots from all the fruit she’d nervously consumed and she could only make a low groan of pain, one hand to her belly.
Dominic swung down from his horse and hurried to her, his breeches soaked, his dark curls wet to his brow. “What is it? You’re ill!”
“Stop making a fuss!” She stood quickly, her only thought being to get to the privy in time. “Go. Enjoy the feast Bertha has prepared. You must be hungry.”
“Aye!” Her father cried. “Let us toast to the fine competitors. Bring out the ale!”
While Dominic looked at her oddly, and Stryker appealed to the crowd for their congratulations, she scurried across the yard, suddenly on a race of her own.
* * * *
Later, feeling some relief, she joined the feast and saw her two suitors sitting together, talking as if there was never any animosity between them.
What a pity they couldn’t share, she mused.
Suddenly Aelin was by her shoulder. “Wine, my lady?” she purred, offering to pour some for her.
“No. Thank you.” Her stomach was still tender.
“It is hard, my lady, to make such a choice.”
“Yes,” she muttered peevishly, staring at the two men who did battle for her and now sat down to enjoy their supper. While she was sick, unable to eat or drink, too worried about the fate of Lyndower.
“But all your tests today, my lady, were to see which man might be the best master of the manor,” said the woman at her side. “Where was the test to see who would be a better husband? Should you not have one of those too?”
Elsinora stared at Aelin. “That is what the competition was about,” she snapped curtly.
“Aye. But those were not tests I’d set for a husband. What do I care if he can mend a wheel and build a fire? He’ll have other men to do that.” The other woman chuckled and winked. ‘Tis my fire he must tend.”
Elsinora watched her walk away, swaying through the crowd with the wine jug.
As much as she wanted to ignore Aelin, there was truth to the hussy’s words. She wasn’t simply choosing the next master of Lyndower was she?
And she wasn’t ready to give up on Dominic. Someone, evidently, had set out to sabotage his efforts that day. He probably thought it was her, but it wasn’t. She’d meant for the competition to be fair. Elsinora knew she had to give him another chance.
After some thought she sent a messenger to bring the two men outside and she waited for them, pacing, arms folded.
&n
bsp; The sun was setting over the distant hill, turning the Norman’s unfinished wall into a dark formless lump. The air was still warm and sticky sweet, heavy scents drifting languidly over from the orchard and stirred into a pottage with fragrance from Bertha’s herb garden. Add a little peck of sea salt from over the cliffs and this was the very unique air of Lyndower. Elsinora took a great greedy breath of it all, filling her lungs with the same air she’d fed upon for nineteen summers like these. Nineteen years of waiting to be noticed, taken seriously, loved for herself.
The two men approached her and the dying sun dripped gold upon their broad shoulders. She was a lucky woman to have two fine men vying for her, she thought, fully appreciating her good fortune for the first time that evening.
“Are you ready to accept me as your husband?” Stryker demanded, hands on his hips.
“Not yet. I have one final test for you both.”
They looked at one another and then at her again, waiting. She felt their impatience across the small distance and it made the tiny hairs on her arms stand to attention.
“Soon,” she said softly, “if you are agreeable, we will spend a night together. The three of us. Then I shall choose the man who pleases me most.”
Silence. She took another gulp of spiced air.
“Well? Are we agreed?”
The sun was almost completely over the horizon now and she could not see their eyes, but she heard their breaths—Stryker’s were loud, short, sharp bursts; Dominic’s were slower, deeper.
“If I win,” said Stryker, “he leaves forever.”
She nodded.
Dominic cleared his throat. “And if I win, Bloodaxe gives up his claim.”
Again she nodded. Under her gown, where neither man could see, she pressed her thighs tightly together and felt the warmth already flowing. She waited a moment, her heart beating thickly. Finally she said, “Very well then. The three of us. Together. Then my word will be final. You, Stryker, will withdraw your claim, or you, Dominic, will leave.”
And so it was agreed.
Part Three
Ignis
Chapter Thirteen
The waves churned, the sea unsettled today. It was fitting, she thought, standing in the water, pushing her father’s funeral raft with the tallest of the billowing crests. Gudderth would like it this way. If the sea was calm it would take his raft in a slow drift out over the horizon, but as it was, with nature’s temper stirred, he would receive a most memorable, tumultuous send off. And Elsinora organized everything just the way he’d always wanted it. The idea of being buried in the ground, devoured by earthworms and beetles had terrified her father. Now his body would be taken by fire and water. His spirit would be freed in only moments.
Alf stood by with the flaming torch, a blur of amber in the corner of her tear-filled eye.
“Goodbye Papa,” she whispered, planting a final kiss to his cold forehead and then to the rigid fingers clasped over the sword hilt laid against his chest.
Waves lapped at her thighs, pushing and pulling at her gown and at the raft. A rush of tiny pebbles moved under her feet, sucked away by power of the tide. For a moment she was almost swept away into the sea, but Dominic waded out to stand behind her, his hands on her waist.
“Be careful, Elzinora,” he urged as the waves battered her legs and still she clung to the raft, not yet ready to let her father go. “The tide is strong today.”
Did he not think she could feel it for herself? Now that her father was gone, did he think to take over her life completely? Make more rules? Treat her like his serf? She stepped on his foot and writhed out of his grasp, splashing into deeper water.
At her signal, Alf tossed the burning torch and it landed on the raft, flames leaping and fluttering. Straw rushes placed around her father’s body and soaked in mutton fat, quickly caught the shower of sparks and ignited.
Elsinora’s feet slipped again as the pebbles moved, the ground shifting under her shoes. Another tall wave almost took her, but again Dominic was there, grabbing her gown, hauling her back to shallower water.
Beside her father’s people, she stood in the sea and watched his burning raft float away, her throat tight with captured sobs. She’d kept her promise down to the last detail. Hopefully, in the end, she had done something to make him proud at last. Finally.
The sun was setting, bathing the world in copper and bronze, but there, against the bumpy horizon a beacon of fierce light now competed with the wilting sun. It glowed and clawed at the sky, sparks bursting like shooting stars.
Alf and the other men sank to their knees in the sand and watched in silent awe as Gudderth’s spirit flew free with the smoke and the darting flames.
She turned to Dominic and said simply, “Tonight. Send word to Stryker Bloodaxe.”
It was time she made her choice. Once and for all.
* * * *
That evening at supper the villagers came, one by one or in couples, to lay gifts at his feet, pledge fealty and—a few of them—to beg boons of their new master. Elsinora watched it all with narrowed eyes. Her father was dead for only two days and life swiftly moved on, the Norman stepping easily into his place, thanks to those months of preparation for this moment. She’d heard Alf say that bringing Dominic Coeur-du-Loup to Lyndower was the wisest thing Gudderth ever did. They were all unaware that the Norman cheated with his dice to beat Gudderth. But would they even care if they knew?
“Eat your food, Elzinora,” Dominic said to her, gesturing at her full platter.
“I cannot eat,” she muttered, sullen. “I am sick.”
He looked at her with a sudden, hopeful expression. “Mayhap you are with child?” Of course he hoped for that to solidify his place as her husband.
She sighed. “I am sick because I just lost my father.” Had he forgotten already?
“Ah.” Now he seemed crestfallen, his gaze lowered to the table. “Of course. But you must still eat.”
He was always trying to make her eat, she realized, irritated. Perhaps he preferred plump women like Aelin. Pressing her lips tightly together, she shoved her platter away, certain the taste of the food would choke her now. She saw him glance at the platter again but he made no comment. It was probably, in his eyes, just another example of her disobedience to him.
Looking across the hall she caught the woman Aelin watching her husband from a distance, bosom bursting out of her gown as usual. Dominic saw her. Elsinora knew it. In her current grieving mood, the fact that he pretended not to see the other woman struck her as sinister. Only that morning, entering the cookhouse unseen by the others, she’d overheard two of the maids discussing Aelin and her husband. Apparently Aelin had shared vivid details of several encounters with Coeur-du-Loup.
Elsinora did not confront him about it. With her father’s passing on her mind, she had no time to deal with other matters. Now she wondered if it was even worth mentioning to him. So he had once told her that when he married he would never have another woman. It was likely a lie to confuse her. A man capable of cheating with crooked dice, was certainly capable of a simple lie.
Hurt choked in her throat. Her father was gone. Everything was in flux, the ground moving beneath her, just as the sand and pebbles had shifted under her feet today. She wished the tide had taken her too.
But tonight all would be settled. The three of them had agreed.
Mourning or not, she saw no reason to wait a moment longer.
* * * *
He saw her run out of the hall, but he let her go. Her mood had been strange that day, but she mourned for her father no doubt. Let her cry her tears. Better out than held in.
The woman Aelin was watching him again, smiling in that “come hither” way through the leaping flames of the fire pit in the center of the hall. She needed something else to occupy her thoughts, he mused. Perhaps he should send her to Bloodaxe. Not much substitute for the pixie though, was she? Bloodaxe would probably be further insulted by such a gesture.
Suddenly he c
ouldn’t eat anymore. He stood, flinging his mantle over his shoulder, and walked out after his wife.
It was cooler now in the evenings, the leaves on the trees turning brittle, edged in gold. Despite the changing seasons it had not rained for several weeks. The ground was dry, the water low in the trough as he walked by. Months had passed since he washed his wife’s maiden blood from her legs in that trough. It felt like only days.
Glancing to the left he saw her perched on a five-barred gate, watching the pigs in their sty. Was she weeping for her father? He thought so. Pondering how to deal with his wife’s grief, he hesitated, pretending to pause and examine one of the carthorses currently being groomed in the yard. He exchanged a few words with the young boy combing the horse’s mane, but in his peripheral vision he watched Elsinora. He shoulders were hunched, her head down. If he tried to comfort her, he knew she would curse at him, as she did today on the sands when he kept her from being swept away on the fierce waves.
Too afraid to approach, not knowing how best to handle her tears, he hurried in the other direction.
* * * *
The only soul who came to commiserate with her, was the little boy Nat. He too was feeling lost without her father, it seemed, and he sat with her to reminisce.
“I wish things could go back to what they were before,” he said.
Elsinora nodded. “I agree with you heartily, young Nat.” But things couldn’t to go back, could they? Her father’s spirit had flown, the Norman was building his castle on the hill, and Stryker Bloodaxe hovered like an eagle. A handsome scavenger, but a scavenger nonetheless. No one cared that she’d lost everything. They only wanted to take more from her.
Suddenly the little boy reached for her hand and held it, looking up at her with eyes big as moons. “I told you I will help you, my lady Elsinora. I will save you.”