Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (24 page)

But my little witch is too cautious, and I am no coward. Guards or not, this place should be stormed! Surprise makes all possible
.

The washerwoman dropped her pack by the door and turned to see what was amiss. She had a huge iron key clutched in both hands, but she did not strike out with it, merely dropped the thing into the snow, clapped her fingers to her face and screamed.

Cursing his peg leg—when he had been whole he had sprinted as fast as Peter—Magnus blundered and ploughed through the snow. He closed the gap between them in under four breaths and slammed her back against the doorjamb, clapping his hand across her mouth. Her eyes watered, wide and horrified, then she shivered once and swooned.

He laid her on top of her pack and his own gray bundle, curled on her side like a child. Elfrida spurted through a final bank of snow to crouch beside her, her face glowing, plainly relieved that the woman was unhurt.

Did you think I kill women? Any woman?

Hot indignation raged through him like a storm of fire then was gone, replaced by cold battle strategy.

No alarms, no shouts, no arrows or slingshot. Good! But no cries for help. Less good. Pray God it does not mean the worst.

Hope flickered then faded within him, but he made his voice easy as he helped Elfrida to her feet. “Does Christina sleep a lot in winter? She may be snug within, fast asleep.”

Elfrida looked up at him with blank eyes and said nothing. She was as pale as parchment, her lips bloodless. Even her hair, escaping in straggled tendrils from the russet cap, seemed dimmed.

His heart ached for her terror and disappointment. Swiftly, he snatched the key from the snow before she thought of it. “Let us go see.”

That roused her. “We must beware.”

“And we will, but let us enter. Sitting on the doorstep leaves us naked to the world.” He turned the key in the lock, lifted the washerwoman into his arms and kicked her pack forward as he shouldered open the door.

“’Tis warmer in here.”
Warmer still when I close this door. Keep things everyday, Magnus, or you will have two panicky womenfolk to deal with.

He smelt dust, not blood, and that was a relief. He laid the laundress on the dry dirt floor and covered her with his cloak. Straightening, he felt his tightened shoulders unlock themselves still further. Any lurking felon in here would have jumped him by now, or skidded out of the tower and off into the mistletoe wood.

“Hello?” he called, glancing at Elfrida so she would also call.

“Christina?” She all but whispered the name, as if in pain.

Magnus hugged her hard then forced himself to draw away. “I shall search,” he said. “You stay and tend her.”

She nodded and knelt beside the laundress. As he attacked the wooden stair to the upper chamber, he thought her heard her praying.

Please let me find her sister alive
, he thought, making that his wish and prayer.

* * * *

Elfrida knew she should be doing more.

Why am I so stunned, so supine?

Crouching in the half-lit chamber,
she leaned closer toward Hedda to check that the laundress was still breathing. “You are safe,” she murmured, hoping Hedda could hear and recognize her voice, if not her words.

Where is Christina? How can I find her
?

She chafed Hedda’s work-worn hands, glad that they were warming. She untied her cloak with less-than-steady fingers and draped it over the woman, alongside Magnus’s huge cloak.

I was certain Christina would be here. I wanted, needed her to be here, so badly.

“I have mead and food.” She shook the flask and then pulled off her cap, remembering that Hedda might believe her to be a boy in her different clothes. As her hair spilled out, she placed the woolen cap beneath Hedda’s cheek as a pillow.

Where is my sister? How much longer will it be before I find her?

Hedda kept her eyes closed, though her eyelids flickered, and Elfrida sensed she was conscious. She glanced at the door, wondering if she should lock it.

The key was no longer there. Magnus had taken it.

Feeling—rage and temper—flooded back. She leapt to her feet and sprinted for the narrow ladder to the upper floor, tempted to knock it aside and leave him stranded.

I sensed things were amiss here. I told him to beware. I knew there was danger. Now because of his blundering, we are no further on! Again he does not wait—it was the same as before, with my old gown!

“Magnus!” She shouted because there was no reason to do other. The approaching presence she had sensed was gone. She knew it had vanished from the lightening in her head but could claim no credit for driving it off. “Anything? Anyone?”

“No. I am coming down. Stay there.”

Her crushing, bitter disappointment was again swallowed in anger. How dare he order her? Ignoring the distinctive light-and-sharp tread of his crossing the floorboards of the upper room, Elfrida snatched at the ladder and began to climb. Before she had reached the second chamber, she was shouting again.

“I told you to take care! We have a prisoner now, and what do we do with her? Do you never listen? ’Tis the same as before, with my old gown, and now today, I warned you—”

Magnus appeared at the top of the ladder, leaning down from the second chamber, his face looming into hers like an ugly man in the moon. “Why are you wasting time? Why bother coming up here? No one is here, no Forest Grendel, no missing brides. We should get back.”

She was so furious she took a hand off the ladder to shake her fist at him. “I am the witch! I know what to look for, and you do not! Will you always—”

The rest of her complaint was whipped away in a dizzying rush as Magnus seized the loose front of her man’s tunic and hauled her up the rest of the ladder. He dropped her onto the floorboards beside him. “You are up now, so look.” He growled.

“Will you always ignore me when it suits you?” Elfrida persisted, determined to have her say.

He stuck his hand into his belt, and she saw his knuckles tighten, heard the leather creak under his fist. “Is that what you think?” he asked coolly.

Elfrida swallowed, hoping he would say he was sorry.
Or is he no different from the Yarr men, who call me a scold because I dispute with them?

“It is difficult,” she offered, feeling as if she was on a lonely, strange track. If Magnus would only come to meet her, that would be better.

Still he said nothing. In despair she turned away from him and began to look about, noticing another ladder to a third floor.

“Elfrida.” He laid a warm hand upon her shoulder and then a strong arm about her waist. “Shall we look together?”

She began to weep, and he gathered her in, stroking her hair. “I know you are sad. I know you are frightened,” he murmured.

She dashed the tears from her face. “I am
not
frightened.”

“More than me, then. This is a queer place.”

She clamped her teeth together before she said something she would regret, and she looked up at him. Trying to ignore her own blaze of temper, she noticed a tightening about his eyes and a grimmer-than-usual set to his crooked mouth. Truly, he was not mocking or making light of the matter.

But he does not understand and so wants to hurry to leave
. She could recognize and respect that. “I do not think we should linger here,” she said.

“I agree.”

“But we must search.” When he did not agree to that, she said, “You took the key.”

He reached into his tunic and brought it out. “Take it, then.”

He dropped it into her palm and stalked off to the second ladder.

When will I learn to say nothing?
Elfrida thought.

She forced herself to put their quarrel aside as they went through the strange wooden keep. At Magnus’s brusque suggestion, they began at the very top of the tower, Elfrida biting her tongue a second time as he insisted on going first on the step ladder to the third floor. Once there, he did offer a hand to help her through the narrow trapdoor, but she shook her head, determined to prove her independence. She did not want his touch to divert her, either, as a deep instinct, a witch instinct, warned that she needed all her wits about her.

She stepped from the ladder onto the floor and stood quietly for a moment. “Did you climb up here?” she asked Magnus.

“I put my head up through the trapdoor, saw no one, nothing to aid our search, and climbed back down.” He cleared his throat. “You were calling by then.”

“I was shouting.”

“That, too.”

She felt herself blushing, and when he took her hand in his she was glad of the contact and did not attempt to break free. “There are things about this chamber,” she said quietly. “Traces.”

He stood beside her, patient and steady as a boulder. If he considered her ideas merest fancy, he gave no sign as he glanced again about the seemingly deserted room. Glad they were friends again, she squeezed his hand.

“Is there a lantern hereabouts?” she asked softly. “I need more light.”

“I saw one on the second floor.” Magnus dropped a swift kiss onto her forehead and limped around her to where the ladder jutted out through the trapdoor. An instant later she heard him busy on the floor below her, while on the lowest floor she thought she heard a quiet weeping and the faint rattle of the locked door.

I must ask Magnus if he understands Hedda’s speech
, she thought, then put the matter aside. When Magnus’s long arm stretched above the trapdoor, gripping a small lantern, she thanked him and quickly lit the lantern.

She set the flickering light into a wall sconce, relieved to do so because her hands were not quite steady. Magnus climbed all the way up again and sat beside the ladder, dangling his legs down into the trapdoor. She almost warned him to take care before sharply reminding herself that this was Sir Magnus, warrior, knight, and not a man to be mollycoddled. She did not want to start their quarrel off anew, either.

Even one-handed he climbs well, and his peg leg is as steady on the ladder as my feet, so he would be right to be annoyed. Sometimes I know I fuss too much.

Silent, arms clasped before her so she would not be tempted to rush in and touch, she waited until her sight had adjusted to the greater light. The room, a rough square of massive, planked timbers, shone faintly golden by the glow of the lantern. That by itself might have steadied and reassured her, except—

She slowly breathed in, taking in the now-familiar and expected scent of costly spices. “Ginger for passion, saffron for peace, cinnamon to show respect, for it is expensive,” she murmured.

“I can smell something burnt, a kind of resin,” Magnus remarked. “I would say frankincense, but why burn it?”

“To fumigate a space,” Elfrida answered. She wished she had a clove of garlic, or a sprig of fresh rosemary, to protect him completely in this place. All she could do was take his hand in hers, saying a prayer against demons in her mind.

He smiled, clearly thinking she clasped his fingers for reassurance. “We shall look together, my dainty.” In his mouth, unlike Gregory Denzil’s, the final word was a caress.

Glad of his goodwill, and wishing a circle of prayer about them both, Elfrida padded slowly across the room from side to side, foot by foot, like thread on a shuttle. Magnus matched her step for step.