Lady of the Lake (16 page)

His mouth played over hers, applying soft kisses, gently nipping at her lips, their tongues mating, dueling, dancing together. He let her rest beneath him, his weight contained on the fulcrum of her hips, the penetration deep and quiet, the beast in him dormant for the moment. It was a tender quiet, a quiet to be savored, waiting to build to an enormous, satisfying release for each of them.

Again Edon smoothed back the damp tangles of silky hair that clung to her brow and cheek. “Do you still want me, Tala?” he asked almost hesitantly.

She lifted her hand and rubbed the backs of her fingers across his cheek. “Aye, I do. More with each moment that passes between us.”

Reveling in the sweetness of her, Edon dipped his head to her shoulder, allowing both of her hands complete freedom to stroll across his back and sides, caressing him the way he’d worshiped her. He slid his hands under her back, grasping her shoulders, and began to undulate his hips with a slow, steady rhythm—deep even strokes that gave him more pleasure than he’d ever known.

Her body was simply perfect for him, built to respond to his, to cushion and resist him. She matched the tempo of his rhythm each time it changed. Her breath caught in her throat in a little gasp. Edon lifted his head and kissed her neck, planted his elbows and tightened his hands on her shoulders, to pull her downward with each stroke, to increase the power of their mating.

Instinctively her knees tightened at his hips. Her hands flattened on his back and caught hold of the flexing muscles in his shoulders. Her belly slapped against his, then became concave and rounded again with each upward thrust.

“That’s it.” Edon encouraged her to work as hard as
he did. “Bear down on me, Tala. Inside, make your womb grab hold and squeeze now.” His head dropped with the exquisite pleasure of her motion.

He held back, certain that it would be well worth the agony now to wait for her. Her breath had become completely erratic, catching inside her, expelling in frantic moans.

“Edon, please!” she cried.

“Not yet” He shook his hair out of his eyes, lifted his shoulders completely from her and dug his hands into the wood frame of the box bed for support.

Her eyes opened, desperation in them. “Edon!”

“No,” he commanded, locking his jaw against release. The pace doubled. The whole frame of the bed danced on its stout legs, knocking like four devils on the wood floor.

“Edon!” Tala screamed.

“Not yet!” He shut his eyes fiercely, refusing to be tempted by her delirious beauty. Just when he thought he could push his control to a new height, her womb wrested the last of his will from him. It clamped upon him, gripping him in midstroke, and that unbelievable, inexpressible contraction began that spent him completely and milked him of every ounce of seed inside his body.

“My Lord!” Tala yelled.

“Yes!” Edon’s shout was the last gasp of a dying man’s exploding heart. “Odin, save me!”

He collapsed in a blaze of pleasured pain from which there surely would never be any reprieve.

Edon was so still and motionless after he collapsed that Tala thought he was dead. The room was like the ironmaster’s furnace, blazing with heat and sun pouring directly onto them from the west

Tala couldn’t move. Morbid cramps seized hold of her thighs as she lay pinned beneath Edon. Her breath came in scary little pants that didn’t begin to satisfy her need for more air.

But inside her, where all of her feelings had centered completely, there was this wonderful throbbing that went on and on.

She closed her eyes and reveled in it. When she did that, the sun and the heat felt so, so good. Edon’s weight felt like the most soothing coverlet she’d ever snuggled under in her life.

“Tala, be still. I have nothing left. Nothing, you greedy witch.” His lips moved against her neck. He was alive. His chest inflated just a little, pressing down on hers. He groaned like a man mortally wounded.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, content as they were.

“As if I could.”

Edon took a deep breath, gathering what little strength he had. He opened his eyes mere slits to find this wicked redhead in his bed, wearing nothing but a sated, cat-ate-the-cream smile. Odin help him!

He brought his hand to his face, rubbing it, and moistened his lips. Still, he hadn’t the strength to move.

“Edon…” Tala swallowed. “I don’t think I will ever be able to leave this room. You have taught me what you meant about hearing me scream. I am probably going to have to think long and hard about how to manage this. Surely there must be a law written about just how smug and arrogant a man is allowed to be.”

Edon chuckled. He couldn’t laugh. Not yet. He managed to tug gently on her hair. “I will find a very large sack to put over your head so that you do not have to look people in the eye when they congratulate me for having made you scream out my name.

Tala curled up her fingers and hit him. He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the poor little weak fist that couldn’t wound a gnat at this moment.

His rakish smile melted Tala’s heart. What was she going to do? It was too late to turn back. She’d already fallen in love with him. “Don’t let your prowess go to your
head,” she warned him, coming to her senses at last. She found enough strength left inside her to tighten her fist when Edon turned her hand over to kiss the palm.

“Thank you, Tala. That was a splendid tryst.” Edon laid her hand on her chest between her breasts.

“A tryst?” she echoed, chilled by that word.

He looked out the window to judge the time. The sun could now be seen in the shaped glass at the top of the window frame. Colored light danced on the stone wall and the floor at the far corner of the chamber. It was nearing the third hour after noon.

“I’m thirsty, Tala. Get up and fetch me a cup of water.”

“You jest, Viking,” she mumbled. She was still reeling from their lovemaking being called a tryst…as if what had happened in his bed was of no import whatsoever.

Edon tilted his head on his folded hands, looking at her. How like a cat she was, sprawled in the sun, soaking in the rays. Would her white belly freckle if she lay here long enough, absolutely naked? Her legs were brown from the sun and freckled, too. All her freckles were very nice, but her white, white belly was the nicest of all.

She hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d placed her hand between her breasts.

“Are you going to fetch my water, woman?” Edon asked.

Tala opened her eyes and looked at him. His smugness needed lessoning. “Do I have to? When I can get up from this bed, it will be to go and see my brother…or else to go to the privy…”

“Ah, ha.” Edon sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He stood abruptly in one smooth motion, rising to his full, impressive height without any seeming effort at all. “So now you want to go to the privy and take off for Evesham to see your brother, do you? He is just a boy whom you have spoiled abominably and who hasn’t been away from your skirts for one full day. What happened to that declaration
of yours that you could never leave this chamber or look any of my men in the eye?”

“I never said that,” Tala countered, sitting up as he poured a cup of water from the pitcher. She held out her hand, expecting to be served.

Edon frowned. “That is what you meant. That is why I said I would provide you with a big sack to wear over your head. All my men have heard you scream for me to satisfy you, Tala ap Griffin. You may not have noticed how quiet it became outdoors when you were screaming, but I heard the silence. The bed jumped three feet across the floor with the racket you caused. See, look behind you and you will see it is a full arm’s length farther from the wall. You are naught but a little woman with puny strength, but you can yell louder than an Irish banshee when you take your pleasure.”

Her face flooded with color, but best to Edon’s eye was that the blush began at her breasts and spread upward into her throat. Some of it even ran down onto her midriff, making her white, white belly attract his eye again. The little wretch noticed the direction his hungry eyes moved and she snatched up the sheet and drew it across her.

Edon drained the cup of water and set it down. Restored, he reached across her foot and caught the sheet, yanking it off her.

“Give that back, you cur.” Tala caught hold of a corner of the sheet. “I won’t sit here naked for you to drool at like some rheumy-eyed old man!”

“You won’t?” Edon snapped the cloth out of her hands, rolled the sheet into a ball and threw it out the window.

Tala gasped, shocked that he would do such a thing. She dragged her hand through her hair, looking about her for her clothes. Edon saw the direction of her gaze and beat her to her kirtle. In one step he had the garment in hand, rolling it into a tighter ball than he had the sheet.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Tala exclaimed as she got off the bed. He wouldn’t, would he?

Edon packed the wadded cloth tighter, his eyebrow lifted in a dark arch. “What good are clothes to a princess who never expects to leave this room?” he demanded. “Who expects to be served hand and foot by those who come inside these walls? I asked for a drink of water from you and you refused, but you held out your hand, demanding the cup of water I poured for myself. If you want this kirtle, you had better come and get it before I throw it to the rabble beneath this window. There are many out there that would save it as a reminder of the screams they heard coming out this window today.”

Tala’s lower lip started to tremble. She looked to the window, but didn’t dare come away from the protection of the solid stone wall. For the love of Branwyn, she was naked. “Why are you being so cruel to me?”

Edon hardened his heart against her impending storm of tears. “Why are you so thoughtless?”

That stopped the tears before they spilled. “I’m not,” she said insistently.

“You are,” he retorted.

“Then go ahead. Throw my kirtle out the window. Maybe some poor wretch who hasn’t got anything but a scratchy wool rag to wear will catch it. What do I care? I have plenty of kirtles. What makes you think I need to wear anything at all, Viking? I can cast a spell and walk out of here just as I am and no one will know the difference except you.”

Tala ran her hand through her hair one more time, then spun around on her bare foot and marched to the door. She caught the iron handle in her fist and yanked.

Edon tossed the kirtle over his shoulder, not caring if it went out the window or not. “If you open that door and walk out of this room naked, spell or no spell, you will be one very sorry princess.”

Shaking her hair so that more of it would fall and give her some covering, Tala said over her shoulder, “Viking, what makes you so certain that I am not already one very sorry princess?”

The line drawn in the quicksand between them, she yanked open the oak door and walked out.

A
n instant later Tala slammed the door shut at her back. Nearly blind with anger, she took two steps into Edon’s hall and froze.

The hall was not empty!

It should have been. It was the middle of the afternoon. Over a thousand people attended the market. Every one of Edon’s entourage should have been outdoors, haggling with the merchants and farmers. Tala should have had the time to gather her wits, or at least cast a spell of invisibility about her once she had slammed Jarl Edon’s bedchamber door.

Pride should have girded her with a cloak of protection before she even thought to cast a spell. There was not a heartbeat of time to accomplish anything. Before her was a hall filled to standing room only. The slamming door caused every head in the hall to swing her direction. Tala’s nakedness kept those heads turned while eyes widened, focused and outright stared.

“Oh, dear,” Lady Eloya murmured, as King Alfred rose from Edon’s high-backed chair. Rashid touched Eloya’s arm and silence fell as the king put out his hand and stopped the withdrawal of a deadly blade from the scabbard at Venn ap Griffin’s waist.

“Let me go, sire,” the young prince yelled. “I told you we’d come too late. I’ll kill the bastard!”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” the king commanded.

Tala gulped. She had two choices in that instant. She could continue forward, throw herself at her cousin’s feet and beg his protection, or she could turn around, swallow the pride she had left and retreat to the Viking, thereby allowing Edon to gloat over her stupidity all the rest of her miserable days.

Knowing full well that it was going to cost her a much deserved beating no matter which route she chose, she opted for the king. He had shown mercy in the past.

Time seemed to have come to a complete standstill. No one moved as Tala strode across the hall and came to a stop within striking distance of King Alfred’s long arm. She dropped to her knee before the king, bowing her head deeply. Some of her tangled, sleep-mussed hair fell across her shoulders and covered her nakedness.

She brought both her hands together, her bent arms covering her breasts, saying urgently, “Your Majesty, forgive me. I throw myself upon your mercy.”

By Anu’s shroud, she wanted to die. She wanted Lugh to split the floor of the keep and open a hole in the earth to swallow her up in the otherworld. The ripe scent of her own body rose up to torment her more. Tala kept her downcast eyes on the planks of unvarnished wood before the king. She didn’t dare look above the scuffling feet of her brother, struggling to free himself from the king’s soldier who forcibly contained him.

“For the love of God, someone give me my cloak,” Alfred said in a choked voice. Immediately, the king’s steward produced Alfred’s ermine-lined cloak and dropped the heavy cloth across Tala’s shoulders. She clutched it around her, mortified, beginning to shake at her own tenacity. Oh, what she would give to roll back time onequarter
of an hour, to be back in that bed when Edon had asked her for a drink of water!

“Marshal, clear this hall!” Alfred’s shout broke the spell-shocked inertia. Instantly, people jumped into purposeful motion. Venn lunged free of the soldier restraining him, whipped his dagger out of its sheath and ran at the closed door of Edon’s bedchamber.

“Nels!” Alfred commanded, “Take that boy out! Tie him back to the whipping post if he gives you one bit of trouble. Tala ap Griffin, get on your feet. You had the audacity to march into this room as naked as the day you were born. Rise up now and stand before me and account for what you think you’re doing in this shire! I gave you leave to go to Chester, did I not?”

“Your Majesty?” Tala looked up, terrified.

Venn gave a fierce shout as he was captured and his weapon wrenched out of his hand. Bishop Nels himself wrapped him in an armlock and wrestled him to the stairs. Venn roared a protest that would have credited the lion in Edon’s menagerie.

The king’s guards and Edon’s hustled the curious down the narrow steps to the lower floor after the bishop. They could not get people moving anywhere near fast enough to suit Tala or King Alfred.

“I said stand up!” Alfred roared.

Tala jerked upright, unaided, trembling from head to foot. Never in her life had her knees rattled so hard. She made herself look at her cousin. Alfred was twelve years the older, but he had spent half of his life commanding an army. She had never feared his wrath before. She did now. Her eyes darted to the only escape from this keep, the stairwell. Her jaw moved up and down but no words could come out of her throat. She wet her lips as the last head slipped out of sight down the stairs.

“My lord cousin, forgive me, please.” Tala choked, rattled by the fierce expression on Alfred’s face. She saw that
she had embarrassed him as much as she had embarrassed herself. “This is not what it seems.”

His intelligent brow lowered ominously. “Then you’d best tell me quick just what you did hope to accomplish by this little drama…so obviously staged for my benefit?”

“I have not staged anything,” Tala answered quickly. “On my word, Alfred, I did not know you were here. I thought the whole keep empty.”

“With the noise of forty people in the very next chamber?” Alfred countered, pointing to an empty hourglass standing on Edon’s laden trestle. “I turned that over myself when the wait for your dalliance to end became tedious.”

Flaming color shot into Tala’s cheeks. “You’ve been here nearly an hour, sire?”

Alfred almost raised his arm to strike her for her interminable gall. Did she think him a fool? He clenched his teeth and growled, “I arrived at midday and was met by a blind man who invited me into this hall. He informed me that you and the jarl were otherwise occupied.”

Abashed, Tala said earnestly, “On my soul, Cousin, I did not know that. I heard nothing beyond the walls of that room.”

The door at Tala’s back opened. Alfred’s piercing blue eyes shifted to take a summary of Edon. He came into the king’s presence clothed, wearing breeks and boots and crossgartered leggings. Tala slid a sideways look at him and saw that he’d even honored the king by putting on a proper tunic, with sleeves and a standing collar at his throat. Her fingers tightened on Alfred’s robe, pulling it closer about her chest.

Edon went straight to the king and put his knee to the floor. He made a humble obeisance, solicitously taking the king’s hand and kissing his ring. “Your Majesty, forgive me for not being present at your arrival. You were not expected before the morrow.”

“How can that be credited when you knew my ward would come to me breathing tales of his sister’s dishonoring? Don’t give me any of your smooth palavering, Wolf. Stand up and face me man-to-man. I commanded you to marry the princess of Leam, not seduce her.”

“You hadn’t the right to order him to marry me?” Tala started.

“I have every right!” Alfred shouted.

Edon glared at Tala and issued a warning as an aside as he got to his feet. “I told you not to open that door, Princess!”

“No, you told me that I would be sorry if I walked out of the room, and I told you I was already sorry. Alfred, how could you command this Viking to marry me when you know full well the traditions of my people? Why would you do that?”

“You are my ward, Tala ap Griffin, and it is my right to command that you accept such husband as I see fit. I also commanded you to take lessons with the abbess at Loytcoyt to see that your sisters were baptized and to attend Mass daily. I made it clear that I would not tolerate any more nonsense in the groves. I also commanded you not to teach those girls to become witches, healers or seers.”

“What girls are we talking about?” Edon interrupted.

“The three sisters to the atheling and your bride, Warwick. Where are they? My best guess tells me they aren’t at Loytcoyt Abbey where they should be, are they, Tala?”

“No, sire,” She shook her head.

“Just as I thought.” Alfred’s displeasure was evident by the dark scowl marring his handsome face. “Then I have not arrived here any too soon. The wedding takes place day after tomorrow, Tala ap Griffin, and you have no say whatsoever in refusing it Test my will on that accord if you dare.

“It is not too late to order you taken to the whipping
post and flogged for your audacity. I will leave punishing your brazenness to the jarl’s discretion. It is clear to me that your boldness results from a power play between the two of you. And I will tell Jarl Edon very frankly my opinion of this matter.”

The king paused. His eyes condemned her for whatever willfulness he perceived in this odd, unaccountable situation.

“Return to your boudoir and repair your appearance. Do not venture out again in my presence without attending to your station as the bearer of the title to the land of Leam requires. Such exalted status deserves more than you have given it.”

The will to fight deserted Tala. Her heart was crushed, trampled under kingly edicts and Edon’s callous seduction. She would have given up all of Leam for love, provided the Viking would have left her self-respect intact. Tala realized that Edon had been ordered to get control of her land. Wasn’t bedding the eldest daughter of the last king of Leam the surest way to do that?

Edon of Warwick would never love her. He was marrying her only because of a whim of state. Nothing in the real world was what Tala thought it was. The simple denial of a cup of water, in his eyes, had made her seem thought-less and unworthy of the Wolf of Warwick’s esteem. What man of any standing would want her now that she’d debased herself completely before the king and his court?

It saddened her. There would be no redress for Leam. They were all to be sacrificed so that Alfred could have a lasting peace with the Danelaw. The gods would not rally to Leam’s aid. The gods were dead. The final truth was that Tala had known it in her heart for a long, long time.

Not long after the king dismissed her, Lady Eloya and her maids were sent to the bathhouse to attend Tala. Tala
wasn’t fooled by the womens’ solicitous manner; she was under close watch.

Tala wanted to tell Alfred and Edon it wasn’t necessary. If left to her own devices, she wasn’t going to open a vein. The time-honored route out of deep disgrace practiced by the Romans had no appeal to her, even now. But being watched so carefully wasn’t making this interminable day any shorter.

The water was too hot and the sauna beastly. Tala was given some sort of penitent’s robe to wear after her bath. She concluded from that that it was only a matter of time before she was to be publicly flogged and cast out of the community.

Lost in her own dreary thoughts, she couldn’t pay any attention to the fact that Warwick kept getting more and more crowded during the rest of the sweltering afternoon. All the remaining folk of Leam came to the fortress. They openly mixed with newly freed Mercian thralls, Vikings and the king’s retinue of soldiers and monks from Evesham Abbey.

Too late Tala learned that Mother Wren, Anna and Tegwin had come with the little princesses for market day. Selwyn and Stafford wisely declined to come within the walls of Warwick, where their tattoos and uncut braids would draw immediate attention to the party.

But Tala’s sisters’ gold torques made them stand out in the crowd as well. Before too long, King Alfred himself learned of their presence in the crowded palisade. His guards swooped down upon them. Alfred didn’t mince his words. Tala had failed to serve him properly in the capacity of a good Christian guardian.

Her sisters had their torques removed. They were handed up to Alfred’s horse guard and taken immediately from Warwick to a convent of the king’s choosing. Edon tried to dissuade Alfred from taking the girls away by offering to stand in Tala’s stead as a proper guardian for
them. King Alfred flatly refused to consider his offer. Edon was as much a pagan as Tala.

After the girls’ abrupt departure, the king told Venn and Tala that their sisters would dedicate the rest of their growing years to his Christ. When they came of age, Alfred alone would decide who their husbands would be.

In one tumultuous decision, the king abolished the house of Leam.

With her sisters’ golden torques in his fist, Alfred scanned the crowd gathered on the hill of Warwick. He read their mood and sensed a moral victory at hand. He seized the moment. Using the torques as a lure, Alfred of Wessex led all of Warwick down to the banks of the river Avon. All save a handful of Vikings who remained loyal to Embla Silver Throat. She and her guard escaped into the woodlands below Warwick and were not seen again that day in the fortress.

The long day’s sun sank steadily in the west. The citizenry of Leam were ripe for a conversion. Even Edon’s Vikings, mostly refugees from disease and famine rampant on the Continent, were of a mood to accept a change.

Resolutely, King Alfred marched to the river and stood before it, speaking to the gathered people. He knew that most had followed him just to see what he would do with the torques. He knew many of them believed that Branwyn’s silken arm would rise from the water to catch the golden necklaces when he threw them in the water. And he knew they would sink like stones. Nothing more would happen—save that their hopes would be lost. It was up to Alfred to give these people something symbolic to replace their loss.

Alfred spoke eloquently of the old myths, resigning those tales to the realm of fantasy alongside legends of Arthur and Merlin. At exactly the right moment in his impassioned speech, he negligently tossed the three gold torques into the middle of the river Avon.

No miracle occurred. The gold sank in the water and disappeared forever.

Alfred used that demonstration to offer the people of Leam and the pagan Vikings a new beginning—baptism, life everlasting and eternal salvation by the grace of God Almighty. Then he turned to Bishop Nels of Athelney.

The bishop spoke to the struggles the Celts of Britain had suffered through the years. Even as distraught as she was, Tala noticed that Venn was completely spellbound by his words.

Nels of Athelney knew how to speak to all—the sad, hopeless Celts like Tala, the humbled-by-adversity Vikings and the downtrodden Mercians, who weren’t Angles or Saxons or Celts but some bastardized mixture of them all. In his moving speech, Nels transformed the old gods into saints of Christianity.