Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment (5 page)

Silently, Magnus watched her slice the egg in two with her eating dagger, neatly burying half in the ground as some kind of offering and holding out the other half to him.

He took it. “My thanks. That is good to know,” he hazarded, praying they were not dealing with another dark wizard. “Can you sense if the lasses are close by?”

“I want to say they are, because I heard Rowena so clearly in my head, because she said they were
right here
, but I cannot swear to it. He seeks to seduce them.”

It had to be asked. “To what end?”

She flushed and would not look at him. “To be his wives.”

The hastily swallowed egg stuck like a stone in his throat. “Wives, now, as young as they are? Has the fellow older…wives?”

“That is the question, is it not? I had no sense of any older, or more.”

“But you sense he has kidnapped other girls before?”

Elfrida raised her head. “He feels practiced.”

So what happens to them when these maids grow older?

Washing away the sickly taste in his mouth with a gulp of mead, Magnus speculated on the here and now. “Could he have a wagon or a boat? His place of hiding need not be a cottage or castle. Is he there with them every hour?”

“Unless he is rich, he cannot be with them continuously—but then he must have wealth. Riches and a help-mate, as we have said before.”

“The new gowns and gems,” Magnus agreed. “Another Gifford, perhaps? That might explain why Lady Astrid and her priest have not scoured the land for her ward, or seem less urgent than they should be. It may also be why they ask me to search—because they are convinced I lack the means and skill to find Rowena. They may already suspect or know who has her. They act as they do for form’s sake only, or while they send out spies to find out more.”

“Why do that?”

“Rowena or her close family or both will have their supporters within Lady Astrid’s camp. It is prudent for the lady to be seen to be doing something.”

It eased his heart to see Elfrida’s extravagant scowl on his behalf.

“I do not care for such politics,” she spat. “Nor how these nobles seek to use you. But does no one care for these girls?”

“We do.”

Elfrida tapped his left foot and leaned toward him across their trenches. He mirrored her, then lurched to one side, pivoting round to grab the hovering black mass behind him.

“Leggo!” bawled the crumpled shadow, flailing ineffectually. Magnus tightened his grip on the lad, brought him to his knees and pulled down his dark hood.

“You did not come with the Lady Astrid.” Elfrida took in the youth in a single glance. “Will you have some food?”

“How did you hear me?” came the sulky answer.

Magnus gave the boy a shake to make him mind his manners. “I am an old campaigner.”

“Your black cloak shows up too dark against the twilight,” Elfrida went on. “When you arrived a moment ago, I saw you and signaled to my lord.”

The youth’s peevish expression changed to one of interest. “The single tap?”

And thank God Almighty he did not come upon us any sooner as we were making the beast with the two backs, or one back in our case
. Glad of that, Magnus decided to release him. “Aye. Now who are you?”

He heard the lad suck in a great breath as moonlight exposed his ravaged face clearly for the first time but the newcomer did not scream.

“I am Magnus, lord of Norton Mayfield,” Magnus went on, steady and calm as if speaking to an unbroken horse. “My wife is Elfrida.”

Elfrida wrinkled her pretty nose at them both and he sensed the boy relaxing.

Splendor in Christendom, we finally make progress
.

“My name is Tancred Olafsson.”

Part Norman, part Viking, like her Magnus, Elfrida thought, smiling as the boy thanked her for a carrot and leek pie. Tancred flushed, possibly because of her smile, then steadied himself by addressing her husband.

“Rowena is my kin and we were brought up together. We are not close kin, not a cousin or any kind of consan–consan—”

“Consanguinity,” Magnus supplied helpfully. He bit into a pie himself and the two chewed companionably, although they looked very different. Tancred was short where Magnus was tall, a sturdy boy where Magnus was muscled and strapping. Fair, smooth-skinned and amiable, Tancred was very much a page in a great house, with the manners and fine clothes to match. His black cloak alone was worth one or two heavy bags of gold. Seated cross-legged beside him in his grass-stained tunic, Magnus appeared like a dark demon with a youthful charge.

“How old are you, Tancred?” she asked.

The lad’s apple-blossom skin took on a ruddy shade again. “Old enough to ride and follow tracks. When Rowena sent me her pet finch I knew I had to act.”

“So you were not sick?” Elfrida asked, and received a stare from the boy.

“I am never sick.”

“Your age, lad,” grunted Magnus.

“Twelve.” Tancred kicked the grass, then stopped when Magnus glanced at his leg.

“So the finch was a pre-arranged signal. Your parents and kin, will they not be missing you?” Elfrida persisted.

Tancred shrugged. “I can send them word,” he mumbled.

“We shall do that tomorrow,” Magnus said, “when I send a herald back with you to return you to your people.”

“Not so, my lord!” The boy surged to his feet, indignant as a ruffled cockerel. “I came to rescue Rowena! She needs me!”

“You know where she is?” Elfrida could scarcely believe their good fortune. Was it going to be this easy?

Tancred thrust out his chest and put his thumbs in his belt, perhaps imitating an older relative. “I know where she is not and where she never wants to be.”

“The nunnery?” Elfrida prompted.

Tancred blushed afresh and said nothing.

“Are you also Lady Astrid’s ward?” Magnus asked.

“No.”

“Have you searched for Rowena?” Magnus went on.

“Yes! Everywhere I can think of and more.”

Elfrida hesitated then chose to be direct. “Do you think she ran away?”

“Why send me the finch, then? As you guessed, that was her signal for me to help.”

“And before you could give it, she vanishes,” Magnus observed. “Lady Astrid tells us Rowena was stolen away.”

“By a dark Jewish stranger.” The boy flung himself back onto the grass. “I have heard this news.” Magnus raised his eyebrows, and Tancred added quickly, “my lord.”

“Elfrida and Magnus will do very well for our names,” Elfrida said swiftly. “What else have you heard of this stranger?”

“That no one but his victims sees him.”

“So how does Father Jerome know what he looks like?”

Tancred started at Magnus’s dark rumble of a question but said at once, “He must be mistaken, because no one knows. I know people say he is dark and Jewish, but that is what people always say. The rumor is he has some other girls with him. A few peasants for the most part, easily seduced.”

Elfrida counted to ten in the Arabic Magnus had taught her and strove to ignore Tancred’s unconscious, snobbish cruelty. “Does Rowena ride?” she asked.

“She has a bay pony called Apple.”

“Because Apple loves apples?” Elfrida’s question was rewarded by a grin from Tancred but Magnus was more interested in the pony’s whereabouts.

“Is the beast missing?” he demanded.

“No, my lord— Magnus. I have brought Apple with me, for Rowena when… when she is found.”

Elfrida understood Magnus’s question. If the pony had gone it might still be that Rowena had either run away or been drawn away, and it would have made the area to be searched that much greater.

She is kidnapped for sure and possibly still close.

But Tancred’s other news, what should she make of that? Father Jerome had given a precise description of the stranger but was that a lie? Elfrida tried to remember if she had seen anything of the stranger in her vision, gained any sense of him from the posy he had left. Dispirited, she heard Magnus assure Tancred that he would not be packed off back to his parents tomorrow. He would ride with Magnus and the other men, ride with hounds following the scent of Rowena’s tokens and see if they could trace the girl. Meanwhile tonight, Tancred would sleep with them and Magnus’s household in the great hall, his ponies safely stabled.

Does Magnus want to bring Father Jerome and Tancred face to face and see what happens? she wondered, without much heart. As the three of them gathered up their things and set off for the hall, Elfrida kept returning to the youth’s dismissive words, “A few peasants… easily seduced.”

We have no tokens of theirs and we should have.

She swore then and there to herself that she would not forget the other girls
. I will rescue them, too, as well as Rowena. If need be in spite of the Lady Astrid and this boy.

The vow gave her heart, but she remained disconcerted. Magnus would never be so casually dismissive, would he?

Mark lost no time in taking Magnus aside in the buttery of the great hall, shooing away the carver and server while Elfrida found Tancred bedding and a mattress.

Magnus explained who the boy was, then asked, “Where is that priest?” He had been thwarted in seeing Father Jerome’s face when Tancred strolled into the hall beside him.

“In there with Lady Astrid and her maids.” The rangy, ginger-headed Mark thumbed at the solar door. “Both took to the great bed with possets and potions and blankets and bedcaps, not to mention the good ale of your lady. How Elfrida will manage tomorrow with them, I dread to think. I do not envy her.”

“Any more on the lasses or who took them?”

Mark scratched his nose. “The priest let fall that the stranger was wearing a pair of fine iron prick spurs.”

“Spurs, yet he arrived on foot, begging like a bad traveling player?”

“Father Jerome claimed he had forgotten the spurs before. Me, I think he was too active attending to Lady Astrid’s and his own comforts to remember until she glided off to the bath-house. He followed soon after and then we were busy.”

“Nightcaps and the rest,” Magnus supplied.

“They seem very close, that pair,” said Mark, jerking his head to the closed solar door. “Our Father Jerome and the Lady Astrid. Sleeping together, eating together. What else, eh?”

Because Mark was an old campaigner, Magnus let it pass. “But at least they do not join the hunt tomorrow.”

“Mother be thanked! Does the boy go with us?”

“Tancred?” Ever mindful of his scars, Magnus glanced from the buttery into the hall. “Rowena knows him, so yes. She will feel safe with him.”

He clapped Mark on the shoulder and went to join Elfrida.

I have to tell her she stays at home tomorrow and she will not like it. Yet perhaps if she is not bouncing around on the back of a horse she will take my seed more easily
. He did not want to consider the darker idea, that Elfrida would want to ride with him because she would be less likely to become pregnant.

“Spurs are a detail and very real, not part of a folktale,” Elfrida said. Part of her was relieved that the kidnapper was as described, but his being a horseman possibly widened the area of any search.

“He will have a good horse.” Lying beside her on a thin straw pallet, Magnus was watching the servers rake together the remains of the smoldering summer fire and dowse the torch lights in the great hall. Close to the longest day as it was, Elfrida could see well in the summer night and knew that her husband was disconcerted. She decided to fight at once, while others around them were snoring and settling. Less than an arm’s stretch away from her, Tancred was already an unmoving coiled ball.

“You want to leave me behind tomorrow, but you must not.” She shook Magnus’s leg. “I know I am an indifferent rider, but I can help. What if Rowena is injured? What if the others are harmed? Will a boy like Tancred understand or care?”

“His easily seduced peasants, eh? I knew that would hurt you.” Magnus traced a finger down the side of her face, a slow, comforting touch. “He will learn better.”

His reassuring stroke glided down her spine and the sparkle of his caress made her toes curl. Elfrida fought to keep on her war charge.

“I should be there and so should Lady Astrid.”

That stopped him, as she knew it would. He cupped her face with his hand and narrowed his eyes. “You, madam, I can understand for arguing to come on a quest, any quest, especially one concerning young, vulnerable creatures, but our Norman harpy?”

This was a new word to her. “A harpy?”

“Tis in my book, my bestiary.”

“Along with the porcupine.”

He chuckled. She guessed that he, too, was remembering that moment last winter, when he had accused her of wearing more prickles than a porcupine in their earlier, deadly quest against the necromancer, but she knew she had not won him yet. His next words confirmed it.

“Aye, my Elfrida, and I will show you the harpy, but not tomorrow. I am sorry to say that you must remain with Lady Astrid at the hall and be as nice of a host as you can manage. She will slow us down too much, otherwise.”