Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment (9 page)

She heard a restive shuffling among the followers of the lady and knew they agreed.

“Silvester is not, as you have it, a traveling player,” Magnus remarked quietly.

“Nor a Jew, as you also told us. As you lied to us,” said Elfrida.

Lady Astrid said nothing.

“We know he is handsome,” Elfrida went on. “We know he has a covered wagon that he uses to lure the young maids he wants. Sometimes he takes a girl along with him, to show favor and to beguile other victims.”

Magnus slapped his hand against his thigh. “So he seems safe to them,” he said. “Of course.”

“He plays the pipes to soothe,” Elfrida said, this time watching Lady Astrid’s maids. Githa stared at the ground. Seeing her through the eyes of the spirit world, Elfrida saw Githa’s panic as a dark nimbus around the young woman’s perfectly groomed head.
I must talk to her alone.
She does know this stranger, of that I am sure
. With any luck, Githa would later seek her out.

“These excuses serve no purpose. You have not found Rowena.” Lady Astrid attacked again.

“And you have not told us the whole story, Madam, so we are quit.”

Lady Astrid tried to stare down her nose at the taller, sinewy Magnus but could not. “I do not owe you any explanation,” she began, but he glared at her and she fell silent.

“Someone should explain,” he commanded. “Or I am done here.”

“’Fore God, my lady, say for Rowena!” shouted one of her men, instantly stopping as Lady Astrid swept about to skewer the speaker with a glance.

“I will.” Leading his own pony and Apple, Rowena’s bay, Tancred nudged through the knot of older men and maids. Elfrida marked how they made way for him. The boy looked determined, older than his years. He launched into a spate of Norman French.

“English, if you please,” said Magnus. “Have you found Ruth’s mother and kindred and told them that she is safe?”

Tancred scowled and began afresh in English. “They know. Your men told them. Her mother is walking over. I rode ahead.”

He stopped, perhaps realizing how cold that sounded. Elfrida could only hope he realized it.

Magnus certainly did. “A true knight, to leave a widowed mother plodding in your dust. Go on.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped for an instant and then he spoke, his voice a little shrill and his words very formal, as if learned by rote. “Rowena Gifford is now the sole heir of William the fair. Her father intended her for the church, but that was not Rowena’s wish. She and I plighted our troth many years ago, when we were children. Father Jerome witnessed our vow.”

“That fellow is everywhere,” remarked Magnus, “And another who seems to believe that truth is a feast he need only pick at, that he may choose to share what he likes.”

“How do you know that her father is dead?” Elfrida asked.

“Because he is also a Percival, one of the sons of the overlord of the late William the fair. You are, Tancred, are you not?” Magnus challenged, his brown eyes burning very dark. “One of your names may be Olafsson but you are also a Percival. These great families take great interest in land and who owns it.”

In Tancred’s rapid glance to Lady Astrid, Elfrida appreciated the rest. “And the Lady Astrid is also a Percival by birth and a Gifford by marriage.” She ignored the noble woman’s hiss of displeasure. “You two know each other.”

“Of course,” Tancred answered, with a shrug. “She is my aunt.”

The open, careless way he admitted this proved more to Elfrida. Lady Astrid was also Tancred’s ally and advocate. The lady confirmed it by confessing, “Tancred is my godson.”

“But Tancred is not the only Percival keen to win Rowena’s hand in any future marriage, especially now she is an heiress,” Magnus added shrewdly. “Hence your lack of truth, my lady, to Elfrida and myself, and your clumsy plotting. You fear powerful rivals in your quest to bring these youngsters together.”

Tight-lipped, her face crimsoning to an unbecoming red, Lady Astrid said, “These matters should be private.”

“No, they should not,” said Elfrida at once. “Too much has already been done in secret, and for too long.”

Sensing eyes on her, she turned and saw Githa, as pale as her lady was scarlet.
There are still more secrets here, new secrets. Has Lady Astrid promised her ward to another, as well as to Tancred? Is this why the girl had to vanish, so the lady could negotiate for a richer dowry and terms, have two nobles contesting for Rowena and her lands?

If Tancred is telling the truth, then Lady Astrid must know that Rowena would go with Tancred. But now she cannot do so. Was this why she was taken, to stop her from joining her betrothed?

All the time, the other maids have been kidnapped and these nobles knew and did nothing.

“Who is Silvester, Lady Astrid?” she asked aloud. “I think you know very well.”

Sorely tempted to roar at the Norman icicle and the lad Tancred, to compel them to talk, Magnus felt a narrow hand grip firmly around his wrist. Elfrida murmured, “Step back, my love,” and pulled.

Intrigued, aware of a slight tingle against his sun-baked neck, Magnus stepped with her.

“Fall away,” she said aloud.

Everyone took a backward stride, though Magnus was too proud to be astonished at this piece of magic.
My witch-wife knows something.
At the edge of the tiny circle that had opened in the jostling crowd, he saw Lady Astrid’s haughty bewilderment.

“What?” she mouthed in French, but had no chance to complain. Before any could react—
except for my Elfrida
—an arrow buried itself with a thud in the middle of the open circle.

“No more,” said Elfrida, calm while those around her were fluttering and flapping their hands, Lady Astrid still mouthing French and her maids uttering tiny cries of distress. “It is a message. See the red and gold streamers? Those colors mean something. If the archer had hit any of us he would have been sorry.”

She scowled, her amber eyes as brilliant and piercing as a falcon’s. Magnus sensed her mounting disgust as she added, “It would have been a mistake.”

“Maybe, though a shout or trumpet call would have served as well.” Magnus stepped forward and plucked the arrow and its streamers out of the ground, but Elfrida was already moving.

“They meant it as both message and threat,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Let me pass, please.”

The stuttering crowd parted, then she was running, with Magnus racing after her. They reached the sleeping Ruth together and stood before her.

This child sleeps still and Elfrida looks as grim as she ever can.

Magnus checked his weapons and stared along the road, where a boiling cloud of dust betrayed new riders. A scampering behind them signaled that Tancred, Lady Astrid and their people had also read the streamers and were hurrying to meet whoever was coming.

“Unless I am mistaken, the colors attached to the arrow are those of the Percivals,” Magnus said quietly. “It is a small troop, so they dare not attack.”

Squinting her eyes into the fierce sun, Elfrida nodded. “They wish to parley, or have a spoken message to deliver. One or ’t’other, though I am not sure which.”

Gripping his sword hilt, Magnus did not greatly care. “Now we shall have answers, at least
.
”
I shall get them at sword’s point, if need be.

Slim and straight beside him, Elfrida sighed. “I doubt that we shall like them.”

The herald was a Percival. A bastard Percival, but Master Oswin knew his due. Once he had stepped down from his horse, the Lady Astrid and then the Lord Tancred should have greeted him. Instead a rough, hideously mangled country knight strode forward and growled in English, “Keep your men back. What terms from Silvester?”

“You have no courtesy, sir!” Oswin flared. He gasped as a steel blade knocked against his shoulder and the rough knight spoke again, his words dropping like stones.

“Do not talk to me of fine manners. Splendor in Christendom, man, you could have hit anyone with that loosed arrow! Worse, you fired at my wife. Do not dare tell me I should be pleased.”

Oswin stared down the long sword point into a dark devil’s face and felt his bowels turn to water. His party had stopped on the road, leaving him exposed. Above his own ragged breathing, Oswin heard the scarred knight.

“Speak to me of manners when your kindred act as true lords and save the lasses who have been taken. Now, what terms?”

“We know where your lands and manor—” Faster than an adder, the sword lay against Oswin’s neck. The rest of his proud speech suffocated in his throat.

“Never make threats that you cannot make good. I am a crusader who fought at Azaz. I have waded through blood.”

Standing beside this towering, bestial figure, a plain-clothed wren of a girl stared through Oswin’s skull as if she knew his thoughts.

“He does not come from Silvester,” she remarked in English. “Though he knows him.”

She smiled and Oswin recognized how beautiful she was, with her sweet face and her long red hair. Despite his sweating terror, he felt soothed.

“At your service,” he mumbled, conscious of the beast-knight’s sword still nibbling his neck.

“Come, Master Oswin, can we not help each other?” Inviting a response, the girl lifted her delicate hands. “You are from…?”

How does she know my name?
“I am the herald of Sir Richard de Coucy.”

The wench widened a pair of sparkling golden-brown eyes and, to please her, Oswin found himself adding, “My lord is the elder brother of the young lord Tancred.”

“No brother of mine!” Tancred flung himself closer. “He wants Rowena! She was betrothed to me first!”

“Family quarrels are always the worst,” remarked the ugly knight. It was impossible to tell if he smiled or scowled, but he lifted his sword from Oswin’s naked throat and sheathed it. “Say on, Tancred. This is useful.”

Tancred said nothing. The young woman, meanwhile, glanced at Lady Astrid, giving Oswin the strange idea that she even knew that lady’s plans. He rubbed at his grazed neck.

“My Lord Richard offers his manor as a place of parley,” he said quickly, before Tancred raised another complaint or the comely redhead beguiled him into a further confession.

“Let your noble lord come here to Warren Bruer,” the louring knight answered. “We shall meet in the church. Let the families of the missing girls be summoned. Have the priest stand as surety for all.”

“Will Father Jerome wish to do this, Magnus?” asked the young woman.

“If he wants peace with me, he will,” came back the brusque response. “The fellow lied to us.”

“By silence only,” said Lady Astrid, speaking for the first time.

“Unlike you, then, my lady, but as my Elfrida says, there has been rather too much silence.” Magnus slapped Oswin so heartily on his back that the herald almost stumbled. “Go back to your lord. We shall wait for your return and his appearance.”

“I shall go with you,” said Lady Astrid.

“And I.” Tancred moved closer to his aunt.

Oswin dared not take such terms back to Lord Richard, nor have his lord’s quarrelsome family ride along with him. “That will not do.”

“Aye, I thought it would not.” Magnus folded his arms across his chest. “What surety can you provide me with, herald? We might ride into a trap.”

“The Lord Tancred, the Lady Astrid to remain with your men.”

“No!” bawled Tancred, while the lady looked pained.

“What else?” demanded Magnus.

Reluctantly—his lord had ordered him to offer this only if nothing else was deemed acceptable—Oswin tapped the pouch attached to his belt. “I am further instructed to give you the holy relic of the Virgin, her bridal coronet, for your men to keep as hostage with my lord’s brother and aunt.”

He untied the pouch and displayed the relic, turning it so the crown’s many jewels sparkled in the sunlight.

Many gasped at the sight of this sacred object, but the man, Magnus, merely looked at the girl, Elfrida. She said something in a language that Oswin did not understand, but however she answered, Magnus held out his hand.

“Done, master herald. Now let us be going.”

Of course it was not so smooth or simple. Magnus did not expect it to be. Elfrida would not leave Ruth until the girl’s mother had arrived. Then she would not go until Ruth had stirred, which the child did at once when Elfrida touched her hand. Then Ruth had to have eaten and drunk something. After that, Magnus had found himself promising that Mark and two others would escort mother and daughter safely back to their homes on horseback.

She will make a good mother, my Elfrida
.
Unless she does not wish to be a mother
.

More instructions followed for a bemused-looking Mark, then finally Magnus lifted his wife onto his horse and settled behind her. In a column of twos, the troop rode west along the cobbled road, cloaks swirling in the breeze. The haughty herald cast rather too many admiring glances at Elfrida for Magnus’s liking, but his witch was not concerned by such trifles.