Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (32 page)

“Expensive, for sure, but there will be other glaziers to replace it,” Magnus remarked dryly. “The larger pity was Denzil and his men escaping.” He raised his hand to stifle protest. “You have done well. The castle is ours?”

“Yes, sir! I mean, for the moment, sir.”

“Excellent,” said Magnus. “Let us keep it that way.”

My dream means nothing
, he told himself as he calmly gave out familiar orders.
The mystery Denzil may be no more of a threat than was Gregory.

His fingers closed on the amulet Elfrida had given him. Surely it was a good omen that he still had it? But what if his dream was true? What then?

Chapter 23

The brazier had taken a long time to light, and Elfrida was numb fingered by the time it was burning. She swept a small section of the salt circle aside and pushed the dark mirror out into the room, then tore at the lower parts of her rough braies with her knife, hacking off strips from both.

“Be blind to me,” she ordered the glass. To be sure, she dropped the linen strips over the mirror, covering its dark “eye.” Then she resealed her circle.

It was hard to stand and wait, but she knew she must. The room beyond the brazier was as dark as ship pitch, which meant it was also night, the time of her enemy’s greatest power. Again, she told herself not to think of Magnus, lest her anxiety alert the Forest Grendel and the monster turned on him.

But it was impossible, for she could not stop wondering and picturing Magnus, prone in the snow, with a great swelling bruise on the back of his head...

Was that true?

“Please, Holy Mother, let him be safe,” she chanted, the haste of her prayer drumming like hooves within her head. “Let Sir Magnus be safe. Send him guardian angels and spirits.” Elfrida thought of an angel as big as Magnus, as strong as Magnus, with hair as curling as Magnus’s but of burnished gold.

Gold is pure
, she thought, and she drew the gold amulet her mother had given to her over her head. It was an ancient coin with some king’s head upon it. Her mother had soaked it for seven nights in holy water to strengthen its power.

Why did I not give this to Magnus earlier, along with the amulet, when I suspected what we faced? I could not give it to Christina because she was taken from me, and I cannot do it now or my enemy will know, but Magnus was with me! He was right beside me!

Horrified by her carelessness, she felt her breath hitch and her throat burn, both a prelude to weeping. But she could not cry—guilt and shame would do no good now, only action would help. She was a witch, and she must be a witch, not kneel on the floor and wail.

Elfrida straightened and clapped her hands together sharply.

“As my hands are sisters and twins, so this amulet is twinned,” she ordered, fixing on the gold coin twirling on its simple leather chain. There would be two gold coins, she knew, her own and the one of the future that was for Magnus. She was fetching it a little earlier from the future, that was all.

“This amulet is mine.” She raised her right hand and the gold coin spun like a tiny flashing star. “This amulet is its twin, for Magnus.” She raised her left hand, thinking of the gold spinning there, incorruptible, brilliant and round, a perfect circle, symbolizing eternity.

“I give this amulet to Magnus,” she vowed, knowing she would make good her promise as soon as she could. “Also, I give seven gold coins to the spirit of the well in my home.”

The water spirit of the well at home was gentle and powerful together and would be well pleased by such a gift.

“I swear to do this before the next full moon.”

She lowered her hands and brought then tightly together with the gold-coin amulet embraced between them. She bowed her head and prayed in thankfulness to Mary the Virgin, the gold of heaven.

She had faith. When she next put on the amulet, its spirit twin would be put on Magnus.
I have done all I can here. Next must be this room
.

She hung the thin strip of leather around her neck and turned about. The dark mirror was where she had thrust it. The shadows on the north wall were unmoving. She took a clove of garlic and flicked that into the chamber, intently watching where it fell. Spirits of evil detested garlic, so if any lurked here, they would react.

But the flames of the brazier remained steady, and the hunched shadow on the north wall remained still.

Perhaps such dark spirits cluster about their masters like familiars
.

Quickly, without any forewarning thought that would betray her intent, she stepped across and away from the salt circle. The brazier behind her spat a little, as if in warning, but no scaly or furry demon seized her, and no spirits crawled across her skin to possess her.

She clicked her tongue to prove her freedom, laughter pouring from her as she twirled on the spot. Still chuckling, she sped about the room, deliberately tracing the shape of an upright pentagram to counter the ashy remains of the inverted one. Each time she changed direction she prayed to the saints, praising their glory.

The white chamber remained empty, with no sense of impending thunderstorm or evil, and she began to feel foolish.

“Have I been too cautious?” she whispered. Had her enemy intended to inspire this fear in her, in order to delay her? Or was it rather that he was too sure of himself and his power, too arrogant?

“Never fret!” It was a pleasure to use Magnus’s words and to toss the bundled leather cloak he had given her through the trapdoor into the second chamber, an advance warning and guard.

She followed it, clambering smoothly down the ladder into the apple-scented room. Apples were wholesome and food for man, beasts, and good spirits, and she took an armful with her. It was a sweet reminder to her that Magnus also loved apples.

And
if anything lingers on the bottom floor, I can always throw apples at it
, she thought, skimming down the final ladder and lifting the key to the tower from the deepest folds of her tunic.

Magnus told you to stay within the tower
, her conscience pricked.

“Does a man wait?” she asked aloud. “If a man does not wait, why should I?”

She drew on the leather cloak and fiddled with her shoes. She had disrupted the magical work upstairs as completely as she knew how. The clay figure was intact, but everything else was gone—the evil spices were burned, the devilish names were burned, all trace of the inverted pentagram was gone. She had scattered salt to cleanse the evil. She had smeared garlic to repel and disgust demons. She had prayed to the forces of light and goodness.

“
Please, great mother, forgive me if I have done anything amiss or forgotten any duty,
”
she said, her voice trembling with feeling.

I will not fear, she told herself. She was a warrior in magic even as Magnus was a warrior in arms.

So why does he not acknowledge me as such?

The thought was so disconcerting she fled from it, fumbling with the key and unlocking the tower, going straight out into the snow.

In moments she was thigh deep in a glittering mass of white, and more thick flakes were falling. She twisted round to orientate herself and realized that the tower was already only a blur, without color in this snowbound world. Above her head, the trees were thick with snow, and the sky was a dark gray-black, with no moon or stars showing.

Where is Magnus in this blinding murk? Is he lost?

She felt her heart rise in her throat, and the falling snow seemed to burn in her eyes. Compelling her limbs to be still, she listened in the seeping, gnawing cold. Castle Denzil was not so far away, so she should hear any approaching horses and men.

Is he imprisoned?

“Holy Mother, what should I do?” she asked through a jaw that was already beginning to chatter. Return to the tower, blunder through the snows to Castle Denzil, or go further north, deeper into the forest, to where she knew that Christina was ensnared, within a tower of stone?

She knew it was to the north because of the position of the moon and North Star, both of which she had spotted through a narrow gap in the casement of the stone tower. She knew it was an ancient tower, for in that precious glimpse of her sister in the dark mirror she had seen a rough inscription on one of the walls, a scratched text in Latin.

Valerius amat...
the writing had read, or something similar. Valerius loves. Valerius was the name of a man of ancient
Rome
, not a modern, Christian name.

And where the Romans had been there were roads, always roads. Her father had once said that the old Romans, before they sailed back to their city of sin, had been wild for roads. So there must be a good, straight road, which she should be able to find, that would bring her right to the stone tower and to her sister.

She wallowed forward a few steps, glad she was not in a skirt as snow drenched through her tunic and braies and shoes. She watched the iron sky and the falling snow for a break in the clouds, hoping to spot the North Star.

But what then? Never had Magnus’s warning that she remain within the tower been more tempting. If he came and found her gone, he would be angry and fearful for her.

He would be right, too
, Elfrida reflected, wading on, snow sticking to her hair, her arms, and legs, stinging her face, snow everywhere.

But if she stayed safe and he did not return?

“He loves me,” she whispered, her breath a brief puff of steam amidst the trailing curtain of falling snow. Believing that, she knew he must return. He would never abandon those he loved.

Unless Gregory Denzil had dishonored his role as host and now held Magnus prisoner.

Is that why I wait in vain, in the creeping night? But if Magnus is held and Christina is held, whom do I rescue first?

A throbbing rush of hot alarm stormed in her body, sucking the breath from her lungs as she kicked out wildly, trying to hurry in the drifts of snow. The raw pictures in her mind of Magnus being hurt and tormented were too much to stand. She had to reach him, save him, shelter him.

She was running down the wooded hillside by then, skidding and slipping, realizing as she lost her footing altogether that, even without meaning to, she had already chosen. She was not rushing north but back toward Castle Denzil instead.

And what of my sister? Christina!

“Christina!” she cried out in despair as she fell, and the world about her became entirely white, then gray.

I could die here
, was her last conscious thought as the white-gray snow tumbled and spilled over her body and the night smothered her.

* * * *

Gregory Denzil rode in a cold, implacable fury, picking splinters of glass from his clothes and flinging them into the filthy snow. He loathed winter, the colorlessness of it, the boredom of it. Men became fat and idle in winter, when there were fewer travelers to rob and no peasants abroad to give good sport. His men had the insolence to moan about hunts, even wolf hunts, and worse yet, they started to think. He could hear a few of them now, grumbling between the grinding hoofbeats and the horses snorting and clanking in their harnesses, always grumbling. Soon that would change into outright questioning and he would face a challenge. He would have to pick one soon, one of the cocky, clever devils, and make a lesson of him, then reward the others quickly with more loot.

To be tossed from his own keep and by such a whiskery ruse! The old drink-them-under-the-tables, and he had swallowed it. Right now, half of the men were throwing up in the saddle, and most of the hounds were whimpering and splay legged, still as drunk as their masters. He would grab the castle back, of course, but that would take more trouble, more promises of treasure.