Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (13 page)

“Let me down, and let me go home,” she said wearily.

She started a second time as Magnus’s lips brushed her forehead. “I am sorry,” he murmured. “I know you long for your sister and want to help her, but the Denzils are hard and brutish men.” Still cradling her, he began to shuffle to the church door. “I intend to visit their keep, but God knows if I will be allowed to leave. Do you not understand? I could not bear such a fate to happen to you.
”

“
It may not happen to either of us.
”
I will follow their tracks
.
I will charm their horses to gallop slowly
.
I will not be left behind!
“
Release me, please.
”

“
Elfrida—
”

“
I must tend Walter, and have things to do at home. Release me.
”

They had reached the door. He lowered her to her feet, and she fled quickly, without looking back, leaving him stranded in the church.

Chapter 8

“Why must we go tonight?”

Magnus looked at his angry, pinched-faced second-in-command and jerked his head at the standing crowd of villagers huddled in Elfrida’s hut, all eating his food and prodding at her leather bags. In a moment, some potion would be spoiled or spilt, and the whispers would become shouts and angry complaints.

“We need to throw this mob off our trail, and their mouthpiece.”

Mark slyly glanced at Elfrida, serving stew in bowls, but Magnus nodded to Walter, eating again and chatting loudly in the dialect of Top Yarr.

“If any of those come with us, especially that one, all surprise will be lost.”

“But why now? It is as black as
Saint Maurice
out there!”

“The men know? They are ready?”

Mark nodded.

“Excellent.” Magnus clapped his second on the shoulder. “Brace up, man! This way, our leaving is not expected. The villagers have no idea. We ride off before any of them have wit to follow.” He smiled grimly. “The dark will cover our tracks.”

“All the better to break our necks and the horses’ legs, as well.”

“I have ridden at night before, Mark, and so have you.” Magnus scanned the villagers again, careful not to look at Elfrida. He was not exactly ashamed so far as his little witch was concerned, but he was uneasy.

He told himself it was because she had threatened to curse him, although he knew already that she never would, because she was a good witch.

Elfrida is best here, with her people. I shall leave guards to keep her and the folk safe. I will return her sister to her, and then all will be well between us.

“Have you asked that priest to ride with us?”

“Not yet, Mark, but if Father John is like the rest of his brethren, he will agree. One of his flock is in danger.”

“Maybe.” Mark spat on the floor and rubbed at his red nose. “I hope you have gold enough for him, too.”

“I have.” The wagon had brought his treasure chest.

As Magnus spoke, Elfrida looked straight across at him. Standing with a ladle in one hand and a heavy stewpot in the other, she seemed calm and accepting, a Magdalene of the pots and pans. She had not told the villagers, either, so he had no cause to feel aggrieved.

“Magnus.” She spoke his name without rancor and nodded to him, then swiftly turned her head away as if a villager had called out to her, which he knew had not happened.

He nodded in return as a hot, sticky trickle of guilt oozed down his back. She was quick, this woodland witch, but not fast enough. He had seen the anguish in her face.

“
Why can she not come
?
”
whispered a voice in his mind, a woman’s voice—Peter’s
Alice
.

“It is impossible.” His belly felt as if he had just swallowed boiling lead.

“
What will stop her following
?
”
whispered
Alice
in his head.

The darkness and her own people, I trust,
Magnus thought in response, but he knew that was not really good enough. His sense of shame and alarm increased. If she followed on and came to grief, would it not be his fault for denying her natural desire to aid and find her sister?

That may be true, but it cannot be helped
.
I am no nursemaid
.

“And she needs none. She is a witch,”
whispered
Alice
.

He whistled to Mark, the signal, and at once his second began to shove his way to the doorway. His other men began drinking down cups of ale and hastily stuffing trenchers into their mouths. Magnus limped to the fire, where Walter was sitting on a heap of bedding, with the priest beside him.

“I would speak with you alone,” Magnus said, pausing so the priest could translate. “It concerns Christina and how I will find her.”

Father John looked puzzled as he passed on this message, but Walter lumbered onto his crutch and hopped gamely away from the fire, saying something with great force and urgency.

“I agree,” Magnus said, glancing from side to side. Following his orders, the priest had been detained by one of his men, and the villagers were asking Elfrida for more ale—either that or she had offered it, so he and his men could make good their withdrawal.

“
She is a clever wench and fair minded
,
”
Alice
whispered, as the lead in his belly boiled some more.

Walter stopped and turned, his honest, plain face half in shadow. There were many shadows in this part of the hut, which was what Magnus wanted.

“Yes?” asked Walter, or something like.

Magnus lowered his head, as if to share a secret, and when Walter leaned closer, he caught the smaller man a blow on the side of his head that knocked him out. Catching him before he fell, Magnus lowered him onto a stool and pulled his hood halfway across his forehead. Settled on the stool with his back against a set of hurdle fencing, Walter looked to be asleep. His breathing was strong and steady.

That will do very well
.

Magnus left him and eased his way through the press of villagers. Coming to the open door of the hut, he half expected to find Elfrida hovering nearby and was not surprised when he did so.

She was silhouetted in the doorway, a small, slim figure. Her bright hair looked silver in the rising moon and, as he approached, he could see that the last of the itching spots had faded.

She was startlingly lovely, but still he must not take her with him. He could not bear the thought of her hurt by Denzils, touched by Denzils...

“Magnus.” She put down her jug of ale, slipped past a woman who was gesturing and clearly keen to speak to her, and took his left hand in both of hers. “Godspeed.”

Her grave, kind wish almost undid him, but it was the sheen of tears in her bright, amber eyes that punched into him like a dagger thrust.

“You have won, wench.” Torn between kissing her and rolling her in the snow, he dragged her against him. “Get your things.”

 
Silently she plucked a small bundle from out of the darkness.

“You knew?” he snapped.

“I hoped, my lord.”

And that makes it good?
Unable to think of another answer without cursing, he released her and strode outside, hearing her softly follow on.

Mark and the men coming with him tonight were already gathered in the trampled, snowy garden, all armed and mounted. His horse was there, ready for him, shaking its harness. Magnus climbed into the saddle, lifted Elfrida before him, and spoke. “Now we ride, fast and hard.”

Chapter 9

The growing moon was high and bright as they galloped into the woods. The shouts of the villagers were swiftly replaced by a steady drumming of hooves. Mark led the column, urging his horse on the snow-covered tracks as if he had wandered in the forest all his life.

“He has always had a good sense of place and direction,” Magnus agreed when Elfrida commented on it, his voice vibrating through her own chest. They rode very snugly together, and Elfrida was glad of it. Mules and donkeys she knew, but horses were for knights and nobles. The snow, which came to her knees in the village, seemed very low and far away, a soft, white blanket through which the great beasts plowed like mighty ships. She felt to be mounted on a dragon, she was so high above the bare hazels and saplings, and there was so much steam and snorting and muscled power thudding against her already aching thighs.

And Magnus had allowed her to come. Elfrida clicked her tongue, aware that as a witch she should not be so grateful.

It is for others to give way to me, not the other way round! Nor does this bold, bright company know what we are riding to. I sense no malice in these woods, but for how long will that last?

She only hoped she was strong enough.

Stretching frost-numbed fingers beneath her cloak, she touched the twig she had plucked from
her
rowan tree, from
her
land, a charm against dark witchcraft.

“Please keep Christina safe. Let her be safe.”

“Are you cold?” Magnus asked, misunderstanding her urgent plea.

She shook her head. “How do you know where to go?” It was something to ask, and she was interested. She had never thought of knights before Magnus, had not realized that they knew anything beyond war.

“I stayed at Gregory Denzil’s castle keep once when he held a tourney.” Magnus snorted, his breath parting her hair. “The prizes were poor, and I spent one day repairing a wall. It was that or have the serving lasses scream themselves into fits each time they saw me.”

Elfrida flinched at such casual, unconscious cruelty and, feeling her start, Magnus’s long legs tightened around her. “A holly branch caught me,” she gasped in a swift lie, as his embrace tingled down her thighs to her toes.
“
So, how many hours is it from here?
”

“
’
Tis
off to the northwest. When we get to the old road going west, we should go quickly enough. We shall be there by sunrise.
”

Magnus’s horse braced itself to leap across a fallen branch, and Elfrida stifled a yelp as the jolt she received when the bay landed again had her accidentally biting her tongue. She spat, and her blood glowed darkly against the sparkling pillows of snow.

Please let it not be an omen.

“My granddad, the one who spoke the old speech, told me a unicorn lived in these northern woods.”

Relieved he had not seen her spit, Elfrida turned her head so she could see the rugged profile of her companion’s face. “Did you search for the creature?”

He rumbled in amusement. “How did you guess? I did, but granddad said unicorns only showed themselves to maids. I’ve seen boars here, of course, and wolves, and gathered holly and firewood in the woods where I live. Which firewood do you like best?”