Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (42 page)

“Thank you,” she panted when she had breath enough to speak. “I charged then, did I not? And you warned—I am sorry, Magnus.”

“We are quit.” He growled. She looked young again and very pretty, her color roused and her eyes bright. In contrast, he felt as if he had slogged a thousand miles in full armor. Nothing would have pleased him more than to keep his good witch in his arms and sleep.

Elfrida, steady on her feet by now, hooked a narrow but deceptively strong arm around his middle. “How did you know of the trap?”

Trying to support me
, he thought with amusement, but he answered her mildly, “War is one of my skills. And the Denzils had a love of traps and killing holes in the East. I have been watching out for something like this.”

“
Thank you,
”
Elfrida repeated. Standing on tiptoe, she gave him a kiss, soft as a kiss of peace, but warmer.
“
I am deep in your debt,
”
she whispered.

He nodded, thinking of ways she might repay.

Meanwhile, Joseph Denzil was stunned. Even a wretch like Joseph should stay supine for a good half day, but still Magnus wanted Elfrida to be outside the tower before nightfall.
“
We need to go on,
”
he said,
“
but carefully. I will go first, understand?
”

Why am I even taking her along? Because she is Elfrida, and I am learning.

“
Tread where I tread. Stop when I tell you. There can be snares.
”

“
Yes, sir,
”
she replied, all meek and mild but with a gleam in her eyes.
“
Christina?
”
she prompted, serious again.

“We shall find her safe! But Elfrida—
”
He stooped to stare directly into her eyes, hoping that his scarred face looked as brutal and ugly as she had yet seen it. “We must go softly. If there is a guard, I do not want that guard to panic. He must know that his survival depends on your sister being whole and well, that he will die, and die badly, if she is harmed. That is what I will say in the tower, in all the languages I know. You should call, too, call to your sister, but gently.”

He kissed her softly and prepared to go on.

Chapter 30

When she watched Magnus staring up into the dark ceiling space of the tower before taking more than a step inside, Elfrida wondered what he was seeking.

“Some gatehouses in castles have murder spots,” he explained, correctly interpreting her bewilderment.

“Murder spots?”

“No, that is the wrong word. I mean murder places, holes! Murder holes. Gaps in the roof where defenders can pelt attackers with missiles.” He shrugged and took another step into the tower, skirting the trapdoor. “I thought it unlikely that a tower as old and small as this would have such refinements, but it seemed wise to make sure.”

But who is here to defend
? Elfrida thought. Longing to yell out for Christina, she wanted to hurry up the inner stone staircase, but Magnus had taught her the folly of it.
He is right, too, for war is his craft.

She stared at his broad back. He was shifting softly, his feet almost soundless on the stone flags. “Hola! We shall not harm you! Come out, and you will go free!” he called out. He said more, or possibly the same, in several languages and dialects, finishing with what to her sounded suspiciously like threats—certainly his shadowed profile by then was grim. Turning back to her, he beckoned.

“Christina? Sister, are you here?”

What if this is a final feint by Joseph and she is not here? That will be terrible, for if Christina is not here I do not know where she is! Will she yet be saved? Please, by all the good spirits, let it be so!

They paused, listening.

“I can hear breathing, very slow and quiet, as if there is a sleeper within,” Magnus remarked, after a space. “Do you sense anything?”

She wondered at his sharp hearing and tried to concentrate. It was hard, knowing Christina might be so close and still not safe. She hated the idea of her gentle sister being held hostage—Christina would almost die of fear. Finally, to still the tumult within her, she closed her eyes.

Let me see. Let me know if there is a soul or spirit here
.

She caught it then, a sense of wickedness, creating a bad taste in her throat. She could hear the sleeper now, but there was something else hidden in this tower, and it was not wholesome. Still with her eyes closed, she stepped ahead of Magnus, feeling his start of surprise as she brushed past him.

She heard another faint sound, high in the tower, like the hiss of a loosened ribbon. In her mind she saw trees with threads slung between them, and she understood.

“This is surely the middle of the web, of those ropes and ribbons we found,” she murmured. “He must have used them to warn of approaching danger or strangers, but my cutting a thread, yes, it should have disturbed the others, although I was careful in my cutting. So did he not notice anything amiss?”

“Perhaps he knew and did not care.”

Elfrida, her eyes still closed, shook her head. “No, I am certain he did not know. Maybe he did not have the time or inclination to check these threads. He was too sure of his system, or of his power.”

“Typical cleric, typical Denzil,” observed Magnus laconically, but she pressed a hand against his shoulder, and he fell silent at once.

“
Evil has been here, certainly,
”
she said softly.
“
Its taint surrounds us. I am not sure if it is still here.
”

She opened her eyes, scanning the tower. It was midnight-dark inside, with empty wall sconces and no torches. Was that arrogance and idleness again, or could Joseph Denzil see in the night? The stone staircase was narrow and off to one side, with a heavy oak ceiling above hers and Magnus’s heads. From the dim light of the doorway she noticed sprays of mistletoe hung from the wall sconces, their berries glistening like distant, clouded moons. There seemed to be nothing else she could see, at least on the ground floor, no fireplace, no stacked weapons, no barrels of food or wine.

But a sleeper is here, so food is needed.

She almost edged forward before the sour taste in her mouth reminded her to take great care.

“Will you throw a pebble or something on the floor?” she whispered to Magnus.

“Nothing easier.” Magnus flipped a pebble from his tunic and began calling again. “Come down! There is food and drink and safety for you! Leave the womenfolk alive and whole and come! I swear by all the saints that if you do that, you shall not be harmed! Be a man with honor! Let your prisoners alone and come!”

His voice echoed in the tower, then, after the rattle of the pebble on the floor, she heard the deadly rasp of metal on metal issuing from the flagstones. Magnus, shouting still but with raised brows, struck a spark and lit a rough ball of cloth ripped from his tunic.

By the flare of that brief light, Elfrida could just make out the metal snares and scythes, blade and nails and sharp wooden stakes, all heaped before the staircase. Had she followed her yearning and rushed on, she would have run full tilt into them.

“We need torches,” Magnus said, and he retreated to the door.

* * * *

Making torches, lighting them, took some little time. Magnus could sense Elfrida’s tension and almost see her fears tearing at her like the harpies preyed on their hapless victims in the old tales that he had heard around campfires in Outremer. She stayed within the tower, calling encouragement to Christina and praying aloud, “To cleanse this space,” she told him. She did not attempt to move farther than the few steps they had come from the threshold, for which he was grateful.

“
Your sister must be sleeping deeply,
”
he said when she fell silent and despondent after no replies.
“
It is the time of winter dark and solid slumber.
”

“
Or she is drugged,
”
Elfrida answered.

Once he spotted her gazing at him, a cool, farsighted, assessing stare. Where he considered pits and traps, she concerned herself with magical dangers. He knew she felt responsible for his safety, a strange and queer reversal of nature to him, but one he accepted that he could not shake her from.

All will be better with more light
, he told himself, fending off a vague feeling of being watched.

Baldwin
finally brought two spitting torches. Magnus told the youth to keep up and took a torch from him.
“
Do you stay here?
”
he asked Elfrida.

She shook her head—he had not expected otherwise—and he put her between himself and Baldwin. Leading the way, Magnus began to pick a careful path across the nails and snares and wooden stakes, walking steadily and lifting his feet high. All the while, puffing like a small, furious dragon at his back, he could hear Elfrida and sense her taut, barely reined-in impatience. She fairly bristled with it. Not far and all will be well, he wanted to say to comfort her, but he said nothing, for they had reached the stairs, and it might not be true.

Gray, narrow, worn, and unlit, the stairs were also slimy on certain treads. Spilled oil or melted candle wax? he speculated, calling out softly in the old tongue and his own dialect, so
Baldwin
would know, “Grease, here, step over.” He did not lower his torch. Some things were best left as a mystery.

“Christina, you are safe, beloved. Walter is waiting for you, and all is prepared for your return.”

Elfrida was becoming more urgent and desperate in her wishes. He longed to shield her from this trial but knew it was impossible.

She is a warrior of magic, besides, and a warrior always faces things. She would never forgive me if I kept her out of this.

Yet it was so ponderous, step after step, climbing in the dark, with the stair walls and roof feeling to close in around them, pressing down and choking...

Unless that is just me
. Since early youth he had loathed shut-in places, which was why in any siege he had always volunteered for any digging or mining. Now the disgusting, spineless fears of his boyhood shook down the backs of his legs.

If Christina is dead, will Elfrida blame me? No, she will not.
.

He trod on an object that cracked and slithered beneath his peg foot. He checked the cry bubbling in his throat and kicked the unknown thing away, down the stairs. He heard it flopping into the darkness and vowed to burn the whole tower with fire once they were done.

If Christina is dead or alive, will Elfrida return to her village? Will she want to stay there? Ask her, man, and find out!

He was wary of asking and at the same time eager to ask. As much as Elfrida wanted to see her sister, he wanted to know her mind.

It is my future. Have the stakes ever been so high?