Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment

by Lindsay Townsend

  “No!” screamed the girls.

  “No!” cried Elfrida.

  Silvester—who else would it be, as haughty as a cat and with a young maid hung on each arm?—flung back his head to glower down his nose. “How came you?”

  Magnus was already weary of the fellow. “Step away, Silvester,” he warned. “My quarrel is with you. Release them.”

  “No!” shouted the girls a second time. One even stepped in front of her captor, spreading her arms wide to defend him. Over her tiny head and fluttering hands, Silvester met his eyes and smirked.

  Arrogant Percival bastard. “Hiding behind girls, are we?”

  Silvester widened his smile and continued to let the girl stand between them. “You are not welcome here, knightling. Are you from my foolish cousins? They will not have Rowena.”

  “Prove it,” said Magnus. “Fight me.” Knightling, eh? We shall see.

  Silvester shrugged. “How does that prove anything?”

  “That you care enough?” said Magnus, amazed by what the fellow had already done and said, or rather not done.

  “Here!” cried Elfrida suddenly. Leaving the girl she called Susannah, she scrambled over pallets to join him. As she came, she flung up a hand, showing her wedding ring. “Here is proof of caring, of true love! This ring is a public sign of our love! Magnus is my husband! My real husband. We were married by a priest, at the door of the church!”

  Silvester glanced at her, not in the least disconcerted it seemed by this new information. “So he is yours and these are mine,” he said, utterly shameless. “We marry at the midsummer.”

  “For how long?” demanded Elfrida.

  Magnus sensed a movement from the girl sitting down in the corner. He glanced at her and she flinched but then she stared at Elfrida’s raised hand, at the bright ring of gold on her finger.

  “When Regina and the others are as old and wise as Susannah, will you be tired of them as well?” Elfrida went on.

  The smallest of the younger girls, possibly Regina, began to bite her fingernails.

  Do not draw your sword. Elfrida’s silent warning sounded like a bell in Magnus’s head. He scowled, but only because his wife had no need to tell him his business. As if I would in this cramped little room, with these fretful lasses.

  He tapped his sword belt instead.

  Moving with graceful slowness, Silvester put aside the cane he had been carrying and rested it against a wall. “I do not have to fight you,” he said.

  “No, he is a beast!” whimpered another girl. “He will never fight fair.”

  She is young. She thinks she loves Silvester. Despite his brave thoughts, Magnus died a little inside. He looked across to Elfrida, the one who knew him, who loved him.

  Silvester moved then, but he did not charge. He grabbed a girl, yanked her back against him, put a knife to her throat.

  “Easy, easy there.” Magnus lowered his hands. Around him the room seemed brighter as he focused in on that sharp blade, the twitching, white-faced child, Silvester’s cold eyes.

  “Holy Mother,” breathed Elfrida. “This is no marriage. Silvester, please. Let her go. She never hurt you. She is like Rosamund, your nurse. None of your girls, your wives, have hurt you. They have done you nothing but good. Is this how you repay your maidens?”

  Magnus watched the glitter of the blade, stared into Silvester’s face. “Only one right way to end this,” he said quietly. “You know. You know.”

  “The townsfolk love me,” said Silvester, blinking wildly.

  “Aye, maybe they do for now,” Magnus agreed. “But they are out there. I am here.”

  “As am I.” Elfrida snapped her fingers and the scent of valerian filled the room. “The wisdom that your nurse Rosamund told you, I know it too. And I know more.”

  Silvester looked at her. What he saw in her slight, contained figure, in her warm eyes and implacable mouth, Magnus could not guess, but the air between them shimmered. The scent of valerian grew stronger. Still he watched the knife. Let Elfrida work her way and I will work mine.

  The glitter flashed and Magnus lunged, catching the girl, wrapping his arms tight about her, ignoring her screams, turning so she would not see.

  Silvester ran toward the open window, lashing out as Elfrida tried to stop him, leapt through it and fell into the darkness without a sound.

  Crossing the silent room, Magnus looked out. He knew no one could survive such a drop but he wanted to be sure. Peering down into the gloom he spotted Silvester far below. He lay sprawled and broken, on his back, his head twisted to an impossible angle. The pigs rooting in the muck were already showing interest and closing in.

  Magnus crossed himself. “Silvester is dead.” What else could he say? There was no way to soften it. Gently he closed the shutters.

  Shocked beyond screaming or tears, the girls followed Elfrida’s rapid prompts now without protest. Gather their things. Follow her down the stairs. Wait with her while Magnus looked out.

  The wagon Silvester used was outside the house—no luck was involved, merely there was no space else to leave it but the street. Magnus wanted to drag the pallets into it, but Elfrida knew they had to make haste. She shepherded Susannah and the others into the wagon and closed its covers.

  “I will fetch Rowena and our horses,” Magnus said, and he went off, striding away in the hazy sunlight.

  Elfrida waited inside the wagon, her mind buzzing like a hive of bees. Silvester had no real magic, but that final clash of wills between them, where he had drawn on his memories of the old wisdom, that had surprised and drained her.

  Though it is still before noon I could lie down and sleep.

  But of course that was impossible. She, Magnus, even the girls, they were all in danger. Before tottering outside into the street and drawing out the girls she had cast a hiding spell, but still she was not certain whether their hasty leaving had been spotted by one of Silvester’s spies. She did not know for how long the girls’ shock would keep them quiet. She did not know if the girls would ever forgive her Magnus, whether they would always blame them for Silvester’s death. She did not know how to drive the wagon.

  I must learn quickly, though, for Magnus cannot do it. I may gull the town gateman and convince him I am driving Silvester, but Magnus is too conspicuous. He will need to stay inside the wagon and ensure our passengers keep silent.

  It shamed her that she would soon be using her husband’s looks against him, casting him as a threat, but she and Magnus had no choice. To escape Bittesby we must do this.

  The day passed sluggishly for Magnus. Jammed in the wagon with his knees under his chin and the girls crouched as far away from him as they could manage was torture. With Rowena driving the wagon and Elfrida riding beside her, they edged through the streets at the tedious pace of a goose drover.

  Jolted about inside the wagon, Magnus hated the way the girls would not look at him. He longed to comfort them, but they whispered among themselves. He dreaded one of them asking again if Silvester was dead, or asking how the man looked in death. He wished they were less pale, less stricken. Since Silvester had dived from the window they seemed incapable of reacting. Rowena, restored to them, smiling, greeting each by name, offering them a bowl of strawberries she had been given by Alfric, was met with mute disinterest.

  “We must give them time,” Elfrida had whispered to him before she joined Rowena at the front of the wagon. “They do not know who they are anymore.”

  How much time? Magnus thought. How much longer?

  And the wagon inched on.

  Not until they had passed out through the town gate and were grinding along the road did Elfrida dare to relax. Magnus changed places with Rowena then and they could speak together as he drove.

  “We can go no faster than this,” he said. “Our horses are unused to pulling a wagon.”

  Elfrida glanced behind, at Bittesby’s slowly disappearing roofs and church spires. “It cannot be helped.” She, too, longed to go faster. “I am glad
the gate keeper did not notice the horses.”

  “Too busy staring at Rowena?”

  “Yes.” Elfrida watched the passing countryside for a moment. “Did you know she has brought ale and food with her?” she asked then. “Alfric was most generous.”

  “Humph! I know there is a story with Alfric. We may never know it, but he did not like Silvester, did he?”

  Elfrida crossed herself, trying not to think of the dark, fetid yard. “What now?”

  Magnus lightly snapped the reins. “We go home.”

  Home, where Tancred was waiting and Peter and the Templars would have gathered. “What do we tell them about Silvester?”

  “As little as possible, until the lasses are settled again.”

  Home, where Tancred will waste no time in telling Rowena I am a peasant. And how will Magnus and I be with each other? What did he mean when he compared me to Christina and said later that he should be more of a man? Did he mean what I think he meant, that he wants a child with me? Why should that be a difficulty? I wish I knew more but he keeps his thoughts guarded and I cannot sense them.

  Elfrida sighed. I wish I knew more.

  Chapter 23

  The journey took two days, but they had no other trouble. No mob from Bittesby roared out after them, which told Magnus that the townsfolk had really believed Silvester was riding with them in the back of the wagon. He must have done so on his travels before, a piece of luck for us.

  Taking their ease, they moved slowly through the landscape. At close to sunset on the second day, calling to encourage his flagging horses, Magnus brought the wagon into Norton Mayfield. The May pole he had ordered was already set up in the church meadow. Its ribbons and streamers hung limply in the baking evening heat, fluttering in only the strongest of summer breezes.

  Excellent. We shall have some dancing later. Why not? Is today not a celebration? Elfrida and I have won! We have the lasses back, all of them, and safe.

  He knew that he and Elfrida were still not fully at ease with each other, but that would surely come. It must. God would not be so unkind as to leave us this way.

  I must court her again. The decision pleased him and he winked at his wife, perched nervously on the wagon beside him. When she blushed like a young lass, he laughed aloud, delighted with the omen.

  To add to his sense of well-being and victory, soldiers unknown to him but wearing the badges of Peter came out of village houses and saluted as he passed. Ahead, he could see Mark posting sentries and ordering the lighting of the fire in the great hall. The doors to his manor stood open, as they always did when he was home in the summer.

  Peter of the Mount, golden-haired, blue-eyed, bright and deadly as a dragon, sprinted out of the manor house way in front of the shorter-legged Tancred.

  “Hellbane!” Magnus bawled to him, glad to see his friend.

  “Magnus!” Peter clapped him hard on the shoulder and whirled Elfrida off the wagon seat. “Look at you, more beautiful than ever!”

  “Hey, I am a married man.”

  “Not you, fool! Your wife! My Alice sends her best love…”

  Throughout Peter’s enthusiastic greetings, Magnus was aware of the wary silence in the wagon behind him, the polite and careful silence in the hall ahead of him and of Tancred, pounding past the foam-flecked horses. Quick as a whip, he leaned down from the wagon and hauled the lad onto the seat beside him.

  “Steady,” he warned in a steely voice, when Tancred drew breath to protest.

  Squirming in his grip, Tancred was already red-faced. “I want to see Rowena! You have no right to keep her from me!”

  So the lad had heard the rumors and probably knew the news from Baldwin, who had ridden out to escort the wagon to the manor.

  Magnus put his face so close to Tancred’s that he could see the wispy down on the boy’s face. He spoke very distinctly, keeping tight rein on his temper. “Does Rowena want to see you? Not yet, I suspect, not after a long journey. Do you want her to be less than her best? Or you less than yours?”

  Calculation replaced greed on Tancred’s ruddy face. He nodded, said stiffly, “You are right, Magnus. My thanks,” then looked uncertain what to do next.

  Magnus took pity on him. “Why not see if the bath-house is ready for Rowena?” He did not mention the other girls. Sadly, he knew that to speak of them and their trials would cut no ice at all with Tancred.

  The boy’s lower lip curled. “The Templars are in there. Again!”

  Magnus let the chuckle out, recalling the Templars’ love of bathing in Outremer. “Then go in and request their departure. Tell them ladies wish to bathe.”

  Tancred hurtled off like a comet and Magnus scratched at the cloth door of the wagon. He did not put his head through, lest the maids cry at him again.

  “You shall soon be able to bathe and change, my…” His voice faded. What could he call them? “My guests,” he finished weakly.

  “Thank you,” called Rowena from within, serene as a floating swan.

  Magnus flinched as Susannah’s head appeared above his through the cloth door. The girl, who had fainted when she first saw him, now tugged on his tunic.

  “Is your squire Baldwin for the feast tonight?”

  I did not know there was going to be a feast, but why not? He nodded.

  “Will he help me down from the wagon now? And will your friend Sir Peter help the others?”

  Magnus glanced at Peter, still whispering in his wife’s ear. Elfrida was nodding, which meant she and Peter were plotting. He glanced at Susannah and found her looking at him quite steadily. She gave a tiny shrug, almost of apology.

  Of course, Peter is handsome, like Silvester.

  “Your wish is my command.” Tasting the bitterness of his own mangled looks afresh, Magnus put his fingers in his mouth and whistled hard for his squires.

  Elfrida was as busy as she had ever been. At harvest time in Top Yarr, her old village, she had been busy. In winter, healing the elderly and sickly, she had been busy. A house filled with bawling knights she did not know and nervous, prone-to-weeping girls was a different challenge, but she was busy again.

  Finding gowns for the girls was her hardest problem. While they were in the bath house, Elfrida hurried to her bedchamber and pulled her clothes onto the bed. A quick count told her she had four, plus the brown “gown” she had been given as an insult in Lord Richard’s manor.

  I need one more gown from somewhere. More than one, for two of these need washing.

  She sighed, thinking of the ever-present lack of a laundress at the manor.

  Wait, did the Lady Astrid collect all her luggage?

  It was no surprise to Elfrida that the lady had left a clothes chest behind. Opening it, she had just put her hands inside when Magnus, followed by Peter, strode into their solar-bedroom. Glimpsing their faces, she knew this meeting was meant to be private.

  “Magnus.” She began to rise off her knees.

  “Any trouble here?” he was asking Peter.

  Magnus had not heard her. She found herself crouching down again, unsure whether to interrupt more loudly.

  “Only the Templars taking up permanent residence in your bath house.” Peter, also unaware that she was in the chamber, scratched his groin. “How are you, man?”

  “All the better for being home.”

  “Which one of those gigglers that you brought with you is Rowena Gifford?”

  “The prettiest, and she does not giggle at all. You are not going to carry on your quarrel with her, are you, Peter?”

  “Grant me more sense and honor than that! Will I meet her soon?”

  “Soon as you like.”

  “Your Elfrida is looking too pale.”

  “I know.” Magnus stretched his arms above his head before punching Peter playfully on a shoulder. “That bitch Astrid has unsettled her.”

  “So settle her again. Let the youngsters marry or be re-betrothed, have your saint’s day, sort out the Percivals and Giffords and get Elfrida pregnant.
You want an heir, do you not?”

  “I need an heir. That is why I—”

  Magnus suddenly spotted her. Perhaps she had started, or made a sound. His eyes widened and she was sure he was blushing beneath his beard.

  “Excuse me.” Mortified herself, fearful, too, that he might think she was spying on him, Elfrida picked up her skirts and hurried away, leaving the chest open. Pretending not to hear his call—“Elfrida, please wait!”—she ran into the great hall and then farther out, rushing into the garden.

  That is why I married her. Was what he had been going to say. What else? He has married me for an heir. That is what knights and nobles do.

  Hiding herself behind a heavily laden plum tree, she let the tears come. I thought we had married for love…

  Magnus started after his wife but Peter stopped him. “What ails her?”

  Magnus stared at Peter’s hand and his friend released his arm as if he had been scorched. He shook his head, disliking Elfrida overhearing anything. He had been speaking to Peter man-to-man, of heirs because that is what men expected to hear. But he should not have started to mention the Arab learning—that was the kind of confession Tancred might have made, not him.

  At least I did not say it. But what had Elfrida been expecting him to admit?

  Uneasy, he bade a crisp farewell to his friend and went in search of her.

  He tracked her down in the garden. Kneeling on the path, she was examining an obvious weed as if it was a mandrake but had not removed it.

  “Elfrida.”

  She looked up at him, love and hurt shining in her eyes.

  “I am sorry,” he said helplessly, ashamed of being caught gossiping with Peter. Had I not spotted her I might have even spoken of my book itself, as well as the eastern learning. What is wrong with me? Am I an ale-wife to chatter so? “Whatever I have done, or not done, I am sorry for it.”

  “Never fret, Magnus.” She made a good attempt at the words but her heart was plainly not in them and she gave no explanation for her swift departure. Possibly not seeing his outstretched hand, she rose to her feet. “I must get on. The girls need new robes, clean ones at least, and I cannot think where to find any. I hoped Lady Astrid might have left behind some clothes, but it is all shoes.”