I hadn’t forgotten that I had a job to do, but that was no reason to keep my eyes to myself. I stifled an exclamation of delight when she yelled to a little boy too tall for his shirt and dirty breeches that Lady Tonild wanted a flagon of wine right away.
The boy, who had been sitting aimlessly in the grass, instantly stood up and walked over to one of the awnings, where the vixen was waiting for him. They went inside together. The boy came back out with the requested flagon, and the vixen emerged a moment later holding a bronze cauldron in her hands. I guessed that the cauldron was full of sloshing water. And sure enough, she headed across the meadow toward the stream that ran along its edge.
To reach it she had to walk around a couple of tattered storage tents that stood about shoulder height. I hunched forward and ran to the right of one of them, hoping she would walk to the left of it. It worked. I straightened up and stepped in her way just as she rounded the corner. She crashed right into me.
Her cauldron smacked into my shin before jostling back into her and spilling dirty wash water all over her. She yelped in pain as the metal cauldron hit her ankle.
“What the …?” I began, on my knees. “Are you all right?”
She looked at me in confusion. Tears were welling up in the corners of her eyes. “How, uh … oh, I’m so s—” she stammered.
“Sorry?” I said. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, obviously you should have been looking where you were going, but I’m just fine.” I moved on before she could realize that I too should have been looking where I was going.
“Here, let me help you,” I said. I put my arm around her, just below her breasts, and carefully pulled her to her feet, picking up the cauldron with my other hand. With my arm still around her, I looked down at her wet clothes. “Were you on your way to the stream?”
She nodded and tried to free herself, but I didn’t let go.
“Take it slow. Doesn’t it still hurt?” I asked. She pulled free of me and took a step back.
“Ow!” she yelled, and I shot my arm out to keep her from falling.
“Yes, I’d say that definitely hurts. Is it your ankle?”
Another nod.
“Let me help you,” I said again.
A handful of girls were standing by the stream, where I guessed the washing was done, so I gently steered her upstream toward a flowering hawthorn. My luck stayed with me: There was a pleasant, secluded little spot right between the tree trunk and the stream. I lowered her onto the sloping bank, knelt down, and took her warm foot in my hand.
“Is it bad?” I asked.
She nodded, but her eyes suggested that she was not in all that much pain.
I slid my hand up her calf, and although I encountered no objection, I stopped at her knee and gently ran two fingertips back down to her ankle. She shivered and gave me a quick smile.
I slid my hand up to her knee again, but this time I continued up to her soft thigh, paused, and then stroked her gently with the tips of my fingers all the way back down.
Her mouth opened halfway and she leaned forward. “Stop,” she whispered.
I flashed her a big smile, and then I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers just long enough to feel her lips relax.
My hand came up to rest on her shoulder, and she bristled only slightly when I pulled her to me. Suddenly she stiffened. I realized she had bumped into the hilt of my sword, so I let go of her, undid my belt, laid it in the grass, and then turned back to her. She was watching me, an encouraging glint in her blue eyes.
I responded to her encouragement and pulled her to me once more, turning us so that she was lying in my lap with the stream behind her.
This time I let the kiss go on for a long time. She tasted good, fresh with a hint of bread, and her tongue was warm and playful as it moved to meet mine.
It was the sun and the shiny surface of the bit of stream flowing by the tree that saved us.
I’d kept my eyes open as we kissed and suddenly saw a sparkle in the water in front of me. I realized instinctively that it was the reflection from a shiny weapon, so I flung myself backward, clutching the girl to my chest as an ax sliced through the air above us. My back hit a man’s leg, and I pushed the girl aside as I flung myself forward. I grabbed my sword by the hilt and leaped to my feet in an instant, tossing the sheath and belt aside as I did so.
The girl screamed, and the attacker cursed.
I recognized him when he pulled his ax back. It was the axman we had met in the hamlet a couple of days earlier, Toste he had said his name was. I met his next swing with my blade. I parried the ax handle down and to the side, feinted at his eyes, and slashed away at his legs. The blade reverberated in my hand as my sword struck his shinbone. As he screamed and teetered, I jammed the sword through his doublet into his chest. I twisted the blade and pulled it back out with all my might before he even hit the ground.
The girl was on her knees sobbing, her hands clutched to her mouth, but she was going to have to wait. I ran roaring up the slope, ducked under the hawthorn, and flung myself to the left, rolling over the ground. I was back up with my sword at the ready within two heartbeats.
There were no other enemies and no drawn weapons. Only two servant girls who stared at me wide eyed, each with a bundle of laundry resting on her hip.
I slid back down beneath the hawthorn to the girl and the Viking, who was shuddering, half his body engulfed in the stream. He’d lost his ax, his eyes were rolling back in their sockets, and he was hiccuping blood as his hands clutched his stomach, trying to stem the flow gushing from his stab wound.
“Who sent you?” I demanded, dropping to my knees beside him. His eyes narrowed.
“You … lied … to us!” he stammered while shuddering.
I nodded. Of course I had lied to him. It was true that I wasn’t the lord of any estate, but I was certain that wasn’t why he had just attacked us.
“Whom do you serve?” I demanded.
He stared at me in disdain. Blood foamed around his mouth.
“Where are your buddies?” I demanded.
His eyes mocked me as he wheezed, “I’ll see you in Hel.”
Ha. He didn’t think that this counted as a heroic death in battle, and he therefore didn’t believe he was about to enter Valhalla.
I shook him. “Who sent you?”
His eyes rolled up, unseeing, and his mouth twisted and opened, emitting a stream of blood. As he died, the sharp odor of shit hit my nostrils.
I swore.
The girl was still sobbing. I knelt down beside her, put my arm around her, and held her so close that her body stiffened. I stroked her hair back with one hand while caressing her cheek with the other. I whispered that everything was all right. She was safe.
Her body relaxed, and her forehead rested against my chin. As I raised her face toward mine, her eyes were welcoming, though still filled with tears.
“You’re safe now,” I told her.
She nodded. I gave her a quick kiss and then stood up. I glared angrily at the dead man, who stared up vacantly into the branches.
I heard footsteps in the meadow, followed by rough voices, ordering me to come out.
With my sword pointing down at the ground, I climbed up the slope from the stream and burst out from beneath the hawthorn. Four housecarls stood before me, their spears lowered. I gathered that the laundry girls now standing behind the housecarls had alerted them.
“My name is Halfdan. I am investigating the murder of Osfrid the Saxon on behalf of King Cnut. I was attacked and have killed my attacker.”
The one on the far left barked that I should drop my sword.
“Hear me! I am in the service of the king,” I stated.
“Now!” They came closer, the tips of their spears pointed at my chest.
I complied.
Then I spotted more housecarls running toward us. I sighed with relief when I recognized the one in front to be Godskalk. “There’s a girl down there who requires protection,” I told
him.
I saw only two possibilities: That sack of shit Viking just happened to recognize me and wanted revenge because he had figured out I told him a lie. I rejected that possibility. If they knew I was lying, why wait to attack me? Why not pounce on me immediately and force me to fight? Regardless of how he had figured it out, he was clearly not the kind of person who hesitated to use his weapon. A man like that always thinks he’s a better fighter than whoever he goes up against. A mistake that cost him his life.
The other possibility seemed more likely: He had been sent by someone who had seen me with the girl. Someone who wanted to stop her from saying anything to me.
I needed Winston to help me figure out what it was that she wasn’t supposed to tell me.
Chapter 14
The girl was still sobbing, and didn’t stop even after Godskalk had dispatched two mail-clad housecarls down to the bank to protect her. He hadn’t asked any questions; he simply gave the order.
I wished I could go comfort her, but for the time being, she was going to have to manage on her own. Something had just occurred to me.
“Could you send a man up to that pointed tent up there?” I asked Godskalk.
He raised an eyebrow at me. Godskalk looked smart but not arrogant. He had a steadfast look in his eyes, his jaw was square, and his beard well trimmed. His chestnut-brown hair fell forward over his wide forehead under his helmet. Although he was draped in silver and gold, his sword’s hilt was devoid of ornamentation—the weapon of a soldier.
“Tonild sent for a flagon of wine,” I explained. I regretted not having realized the significance of this before. “Which must mean that her brother-in-law, whom she was expecting, has finally arrived. I think Winston wants to ask him a few questions, as well. I would really like the brother-in-law to remain in the tent until Winston has had a chance to speak with him. Ideally, I’d also like to avoid having him hear about what happened down here.”
At a snap of Godskalk’s fingers, three housecarls approached us. Godskalk gave them instructions to assume positions outside Tonild’s tent and, in the name of the king, to ask anyone wishing to leave the tent to wait for us.
“But,” he added for my benefit, “do not use force. Trying to forcibly restrain a Saxon nobleman could be the bump in the road that topples the king’s cart.”
I understood.
“Well, if he does leave the tent, perhaps someone could follow him,” I said.
“You heard that?” Godskalk asked the housecarls, who nodded before rushing off to secure Tonild’s tent. Godskalk then turned to me. “What about the girl?”
I thought quickly. “We’ll have her stay down here by the stream for now.”
It was surely best to keep the Viking’s death under wraps for a while if we could. Unfortunately, I was forced to accept that our chances of doing so were as dead as herring in brine the moment I peered over Godskalk’s shoulder and saw that the laundry girls who had raised the alarm were gone. I spotted them in the middle of an excited cluster of people in the camp. The gossip was too good for them to risk someone else being the first to share it.
I considered our options. The girl had been down by the stream the entire time, so it was unlikely that the laundry wenches had seen her. Maybe we could keep people from finding out she was still alive after all.
“Also,” I said to Godskalk, “do you think you could send a man to fetch Winston the Illustrator?”
Godskalk nodded and dispatched yet another man.
I picked up my sword and meticulously rubbed it clean, first on some hawthorn leaves and then in the grass. Then I strode back over toward the stream bank and peered down at the girl, who had collapsed on the slope between two gruff-looking housecarls.
I skidded down, picked up my belt and put it on, and slid my sword down into its sheath. Then I let the housecarls know with a toss of my head that they could move along.
They sent a cascade of pebbles down the slope as they left, but they were soon out of sight. I could hear their voices, as well as Godskalk’s, from the bank, so I felt safe from further attacks.
I lowered myself to the ground and put my arms around the girl. At first she tried to push me away, but then she went limp in my arms and rested her head against my shoulder. I turned us so that she faced away from Toste’s dead body.
“My name is Halfdan and I’m on an assignment for the king. What’s your name?”
“Fri … Fri … Frideswide,” she said between sobs.
“You were named after Oxford’s patron saint?” I asked her.
She nodded against my shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “But every … everyone calls … calls … me Frida.”
“And you’re from Oxford?” I asked, sliding my hand around her shoulder and giving her a hug.
Another nod.
“So you haven’t been working for Lady Tonild for very long?” My hand slid down her back and pulled her in closer.
She raised her tear-striped face from my shoulder, but gave no sign of wanting to pull away from my embrace. “For only two days,” she replied.
Many noblemen had come without large retinues, choosing instead to hire servants upon arrival in Oxford.
“Is she a good mistress?” I asked Frida.
She shrugged. Servants were usually satisfied as long as they received a decent amount of food, earned more than a field hand’s wage, and weren’t beaten.
I suddenly discerned a new voice above us. Frida looked up in fear, but I pulled her to me, which she didn’t resist. “That’s just my partner—he’s a friendly man, and he wants to talk to you. You can trust him.”
Frida relaxed, and I felt her warm hand slip into mine.
A smile lurked on Winston’s lips when he spotted us sitting so close.
“You really know how to follow an order, Halfdan,” he teased.
I grinned at him.
“Winston, this is Frida. She works for Lady Tonild and was just attacked.”
He looked at me with eyebrows raised. “She was just attacked?” he asked.
I didn’t dare let go of her for fear she would turn around and burst back into tears at the sight of the Viking’s bloody corpse. Instead I motioned for Winston to sit down.
With my mouth right up against his ear, I quietly explained why I thought Frida had been the target. When I finished, Winston nodded.
“Not bad thinking, Halfdan,” he said and stood up. “Shall we go up to sit somewhere in the sun?”
I pulled Frida up, and keeping an arm around her waist, helped her up the slope. I pointed to a toppled alder tree a few feet away. Winston nodded and followed us. Once Frida was seated, I slid down next to her, rested my hand on hers, and explained that she should feel free to answer any question she was asked.
Frida, who was quite relaxed by now, made no move to pull her hand away from mine. She wiped her now dry tears away with her left hand, then looked at Winston with clear eyes.
“What are your duties, Frida?” Winston asked.
She shrugged. “Pretty much anything you can think of.”
“You prepare food?”
She shook her head. “No, the cook the lord brought does that.”
So Osfrid had wanted to make sure he would eat well.
“Do you wait on them?” Winston asked.
A nod.
“Do you scrub vegetables, clean fish and meat, scour and do dishes?” Winston asked.
Another nod.
A girl who did everything, in other words.
“Do you know any of the other staff?” Winston asked, sounding deliberately casual.
“A few. Most of them are also from here in Oxford,” Frida said.
“Ah, I meant your lord’s soldiers, actually,” Winston said.
“Only the ones who grope me,” she scoffed. Winston smiled at her.
“You don’t like that?”
“Not if they smell and are all dirty,” she said with a look of distaste.
“No,” Winston said, now smiling
at me. “I suppose not everyone has a nobleman’s habits.”
The girl didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about.
“Is Horik one of the ones who touches you?” Winston asked.
“He’s tried,” she replied, holding her head high.
Winston and I exchanged looks. So he existed, this Horik.
“When did you last see him?” Winston asked.
Frida thought for a moment. “This morning, I think.”
“I see.” Winston closed his eyes halfway. “Could you be more precise?”
After a long silence, she nodded. “The lady had guests and sent for a flagon of wine. Shortly after that, the priest came out and spoke to Horik. They talked for a while, and then Horik left.”
Winston’s eyes met mine. So we were right. He had been sent away while we were in the tent.
“Just like that?” Winston said.
She stared at him blankly, not understanding.
“He just left?” Winston asked.
“Well, no. He went and got a knapsack first,” Frida replied.
So he was long gone by now.
Winston asked a few more questions, in an effort to discover what Frida knew about the relationship between Osfrid and his wife, but she obviously knew nothing. He asked about guests they had hosted, but she couldn’t tell us anything. He tried to wring more answers out of her—all for naught. As a scullery maid, she didn’t even have access to the tent. She had to hand everything she fetched over to a steward, who then made sure that the lord or lady received it.
“This steward,” Winston finally asked. “Is he from Oxford?”
Frida shook her head, explaining that Osfrid had brought his most important serving staff—cook, steward, and presumably his wife’s lady-in-waiting—with him.
“What’s this steward’s name?” Winston asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
I eyed her skeptically. They had been working together for two days—not long, I realized, but surely long enough to learn each other’s name. But Winston looked at me and shook his head.
“He’s a household servant,” Winston explained to me. “He wouldn’t give a temporary scullery maid the time of day. How many domestic servants were you on a first-name basis with in your former life?”
The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1) Page 12
