Come Back to Me (46 page)

Cymbra came into the hall just then with Wolf beside her. He stopped her at the entrance and said something Rycca could not catch. Cymbra shook her head, took a breath, and continued into the hall. Wolf followed, frowning.

Krysta and Hawk arrived almost immediately thereafter. Hawk very deliberately put himself between his wife and his half-sister, which reminded Rycca that Daria had tried to kill Krysta.

"We will begin," Alfred said. He looked first to Father Elbert.

"Priest, you will answer my questions fully and truthfully. Do you so, I am willing to consider an amelioration of your circumstances. Do you not and you will suffer for it. Do you understand?"

The priest bobbed his head up and down. Rycca looked at his hands clasped before him, twisting compulsively. She started to move a little closer to him only to be stopped by Dragon, who glared at her. With a sigh, she contented herself with mere listening.

"What is the name of the Dane with whom you conspired to prevent the alliance between Saxon and Norse?"

A pulse beat spasmodically in the priest's right eyelid. "I do not know, majesty. Before Almighty God, I swear my crime was only to follow the will of that woman"—he pointed a shaking hand at Lady Daria— "who is a servant of evil!"

A short, barking laugh of contempt greeted this pronouncement. All eyes shifted to Daria. She drew herself up even more erectly, her gaze alight with glee. To Alfred she declared, "Fool that you are, king of fools, even you should know this perversion of a priest lies!"

Alfred's mouth thinned dangerously but he held his temper with what Rycca thought was admirable fortitude.

"Indeed, lady?" the king asked. "And what do you know of this?"

Daria looked around at them all. To Rycca, she seemed to be savoring their attention. She opened her mouth as though to speak, shut it suddenly, and was silent for several moments before she said, "I, lord? A mere woman? How could I know anything at all?"

From the corner of her eye, Rycca saw Cymbra shiver suddenly. Wolf reacted at once. He drew her into his arms and turned his back on the group, effectively shielding her from them. Again, he spoke to her low and urgently. Again, she shook her head.

Krysta too had seen and was frowning. A little man came into the hall just then. He was very short, barrel-chested, and sported a great, dark beard. He went to Krysta, patted her hand, and nodded to Hawk, who seemed to know him.

"I think you underestimate yourself, Lady Daria," Alfred was saying. "I remember you very well from when both of us were young. You were not a timid woman or a stupid one."

Again Daria seemed to wage a battle within herself but this time she could not stop herself from preening. "True, lord, I was never that. If only things had gone differently. My fool of a husband…" She frowned deeply.

"Was not worthy of you," Alfred said. "It was my sad duty to usher him from this world when he rose in rebellion against me. You deserved better, lady."

"Oh, I did! I truly did! How amazing that you
realize
that. It has been such a struggle…"

"I imagine so." The king leaned forward as though hanging on her every word. "I would like to hear of your trials. Perhaps your current circumstances are not justified."

"Indeed they are not! No one will even explain to me why I am kept in that horrid place with those dreadful nuns who will not let me do anything but eat, sleep, and pray."

Hawk looked up at the ceiling. Quietly, he said, "Perhaps trying to kill my wife and our then unborn child has something to do with where you are now."

Daria whirled on him. The man who was her half-brother and who had given her a home for years after the treason of her husband became the target of a full blast of her vitriol.

"Bastard! Oh, yes, do not think otherwise, for our father was only ever married to but one woman, my mother. Mine, not yours or that stupid cow Cymbra's!
She held all his heart and soul, and he was never free to vow himself to any other!"

"God help him were that true," Hawk muttered. "Thankfully, it is not."

No, Rycca thought, it was not, but rather more importantly, Daria believed it was. She was truly convinced of what she said.

"Besides," Daria continued, "I never tried to harm your wife."

Lie
. She knew full well what she had done.

"You do not remember?" Alfred asked.

"What is there to remember?" She pointed to the priest, who shrank before her scrutiny. "This one clouded my mind. He played upon my loneliness and my devotion to God. He gulled me with false promises and stole from me all reason."

"So it was all Father Elbert's doing?"

"I did not!" the priest cried out. He turned to Alfred frantically. "I swear, lord, upon peril of my immortal soul!"

The king held up a hand, silencing him. "Answer me, Lady Daria. Was it Father Elbert's doing or your own?"

"My own? Have you heard nothing I have said? Oh, but of course not! The mighty Alfred! Why would you listen to me?" She turned away in disgust.

The king rose from his seat. His face like thunder, he stared down at her. "Answer me, woman! Do not gainsay your king!"

But Daria had retreated into the fortress of her vanity. From there, she peered out, cold, calculating, and well pleased with the frustration she had wrought.

She and the priest were taken away. The rest were left to mull over what had happened.

Cymbra was pale but stalwart. She looked at Krysta with deep sympathy. "There is a terrible sickness in her. It is a wonder she did not succeed in killing you."

"She came very close," Krysta replied softly. Hawk put an arm around her and drew her to him. Together, they and all the others turned to Rycca.

She took a deep breath, willing herself to calm. Never before had she felt the brush of such malevolence. She prayed she would never do so again.

"Daria is mad," she said. "I have never before tried to tell truth from falsehood in a mad person. But when she spoke of her father never being able to vow himself to anyone but her mother, that was truth. False though it is, she genuinely believes it, and that gave me something to gauge the rest against. She lied about not remembering what she did to Krysta. She knows it full well. The problem is that she never answered your majesty's question about who was really responsible for what happened, she or Father Elbert."

"No," Alfred said wearily, "she did not. I can recall her, question her again, even, if need be, put her to the torture. But will it avail us anything at all?"

"Not likely," Cymbra said. She shuddered. "That one is so engulfed in hatred and rage I doubt she can feel anything else at all, even pain."

"Besides," Rycca added, "I do know that Father Elbert is telling the truth. He really does believe himself to have been her dupe, and when he called her a servant of evil, he said what he genuinely thinks. He is terrified of her."

Alfred looked skeptical, as did the other men. "Mayhap he is only a very good liar."

"No," Rycca said quietly, "he is not."

The king let that go for the moment and said, "Would your father have used such a woman?"

"I don't know," Rycca said honestly. "He has contempt for all women. Ordinarily, I would think it would not even occur to him to involve a woman in anything he did, but I could be wrong. Daria was perfectly positioned to carry out his will. That might have been enough to make him overlook her sex."

"There is no way to know," Alfred said regretfully. He looked at Dragon. "And without that knowledge, I cannot bring Wolscroft to trial."

Wolf moved closer to his brother, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Easy…"

"Easy? How am I to be easy when the man who sought to kill my wife is to go unpunished?" Turning back to Alfred, the outraged Lord of Landsende said, "Think not, majesty, that the alliance between us means Norse will suffer harm at the hands of Saxons and not seek just recompense. By Odin, that will never be!"

"By Christ, that is not what I seek!" Alfred shot back. "But what good will it do the alliance if I am tumbled from my throne by lords who think one of their own has died at the whim of a Viking?"

The two men glared at each other as Rycca's breath caught in her throat. She felt them all teetering on the very edge of disaster.

"Daria has pushed us to this," she exclaimed, "and perhaps also my father. For pity's sake, let us not fall prey to them!"

Desperately, she turned to her husband, pleading with him. "Lord, I love you truly with all my heart. Every moment with you is precious to me but I would give up even that if it meant peace between our peoples. Nothing else can be allowed to matter so much as that."

Dragon did not reply. He was staring at her very oddly. Of the others, she had no awareness at all. Only he existed for her just then. She felt as though there was no ground beneath her but this time instead of falling as she had off the cliff, she soared frantically, desperately, not knowing if at any moment gravity might reclaim her but soaring all the same.

"What did you say?" he demanded.

"Nothing else can be allowed to matter so much as the peace between our peoples! I understand full well how angry you are. The insult done you was profound, but I beg you, think of what you do. Do you go against my father, he wins!!"

Slowly, Dragon shook his head as though trying to clear it. His gaze locked on Rycca's like a man holding fast to the rudder in a mighty storm. A dull flush crept over his high-boned cheeks. "Insult? You think I want to kill your father because he insulted me? For pity's sake, woman, I damn near lost you! Don't you have any idea what that means to me?"

Her eyes widened, never leaving him as he stalked across the stone floor of the Saxon's king's great hall and took firm hold of her by her shoulders. He dragged her up against him even as he near yelled, "Dammit to hell, woman, I love you! What care I for insults? Nothing matters to me save keeping you safe and—"

"Love?" Rycca repeated in a daze.

"Loki take you, lady, you are not the easiest woman in the world to get along with, you know! You are strong, spirited, stubborn, not a meek bone in your body! Your body… Never mind that, the point is you have stolen into my heart and I lack any will to get you out, so do not dare you think of dying! I absolutely forbid it! Did you say you love me?"

Oh, my, Rycca thought, she truly did have wings after all. Strong, sturdy wings that would carry her as high as she wanted to climb. And that was very high indeed.

A smile crept over her clear to her toes. She cupped her husband's face between her hands and took his mouth with hers. Well and thoroughly did she kiss him right there in front of everyone. That took some time, and when she was done she was rather breathless. Yet she managed to say, "I love you, lord. More than life, more even than freedom. You are dearest to me above all."

And for just a moment, there in the hall of the king, Rycca of Landsende saw the sheen of tears in her Viking's eyes.