The ambush took the party completely unawares.
Out of the trees they dropped, and from the bushes they leapt, with clubs and daggers swinging. There was no time to draw a sword or offer a last prayer, so swiftly did the blows fall. Out of a dozen faces, Selig saw only one, no one he recognized—a thief, he supposed, though the man did seem too finely dressed, the sword that cut the bishop down too finely wrought. And then pain exploded in the back of his head and he was falling.
A young man led a fine destrier out of the woods to his lord. The lord mounted to survey the carnage his men had left behind.
“Take their horses,” he ordered his captain. “And what coin they have so it will appear they were robbed.”
“And what if Alfred sends others?”
“Then they will meet the same fate.”
Chapter 4
LADYERIKA PUTthe large ladle to her lips to taste the green pea pottage and sighed, for once again the cook needed instruction. “More saffron, Herbert, and do not be so stingy with the salt either. The merchant is due back again, and I will replenish all the supplies that have gone missing, including your spices.”
She should not have had to say so. Seven years was long enough for these people to learn that their new lord, though a Dane, was not the miser their old lord had been. But they were a timid lot, these serfs, and no wonder, with as brutish and cruel as she had found the houseguards to be.
Erika had put an end to the indiscriminate beatings when she had come to live here four years ago—her brother Ragnar giving her a free hand. Not that she was soft. She could order a whipping when called for—a hanging, too, for that matter. She couldn’t rule her brother’s holdings in his absence without doing what was necessary when the situation warranted it, and she had no difficulty with that. She merely believed inbeing fair and having the punishment fit the crime.
She had taken her brother to task for what he had let continue for the three years before she came. Yet it wasn’t actually his fault that he had done naught, since he had been away with the army for most of those three years, and therefore unaware of the situation.
It was a fine holding he had, and he had obtained it without bloodshed. The old Anglian lord who had lived here had been terrified he would lose all he possessed to the invading army, and so had offered Ragnar Haraldsson his only daughter in marriage. And Ragnar had been delighted to have her and all she brought with her, which included the loyalty of her people.
The old father died of natural causes soon after, and the transition of lordship had gone smoothly because Ragnar was wed to the daughter of the house. And because there had been a lawful marriage, the people’s loyalty easily survived the sad death of their lady in childbirth nine months after she was wedded. They were Ragnar’s people now—and Erika’s.
When she had come here, not only the beatings had ended, but also the near starvation, the rapes, the deaths for minor crimes. However, these people had lived too long under such a brutal yoke, just about every one of them bearing the marks of the lash. It would take more than a handful of years for them to forget the drudgery of the past.
Which was why she had spoken so softly to the cook, and now tempered the reprimand with a smile. “Mayhap a bit thicker, too, Herbert, as I know you like to make it. I do so prefer your recipe to mine.”
The praise had the cook beaming as Erika left the kitchen. But then, that was her usual effect on the servants, whether she offered praise or not—at least on the male servants. Because she was uncommonly pretty, just a smile would do it.
Her beauty was not something she had always appreciated, since it had caused her female siblings to pick on her for many years. Yet she was comfortable with her looks now, even glad of them finally. She had high cheekbones, a short, straight nose, lips rosy and full. Her eyes were powder blue, with thick lashes and gently arched brows. But her glory was her hair, long and golden with a subtle shading of red.
She was a tall woman compared with the people she lived among. But she was small-boned, which gave her a willowy, delicate appearance. Not to say she was skinny. Her curves were well rounded and dented in all the right places, her breasts larger than most but well proportioned to her size, her long legs lean and firm.
Eyes would follow her as she crossed a room, and did now as she left the kitchen. Rarely noticed anymore was the shadow that moved away from the wall to follow her out into the bailey.
Torches lit the way to the hall. She hadn’t realized the hour had grown so late, or that everyone would be waiting to eat. The last meal of the day had been delayed because of the latest thefts, and taking a tally of exactly what was missing this time had occupied her and the kitchen staff for several hours. So she hurried to the hall because Herbert wouldn’t begin sending the food in until she had taken her seat. But her mind was still on the thefts.
“Seven loaves of bread and half the spices,” she said to her shadow. “The spices will be sold, no doubt, but the bread?…Have you noticed anyone getting fat?”
The grunt she received in reply meant No.
“Has Wulnoth no clues who our thief is?” she asked next.
The same grunt. Erika sighed. They had been plagued for a fortnight now with the pilfering of their food supplies, weapons, even several of the livestock. Either there was a very clever stranger sneaking in and out of the manor, or one of their own was selling the goods in Bedford for a tidy profit. It was a wonder Wulnoth, the captain of the guard, hadn’t caught him yet, for the crime warranted a lashing at least, and he did so love using his whip.
She despised the beefy Saxon captain, and had since the first day she met him. The man was arrogant, just short of insolent, and with an inherent cruel streak that could make any wrongdoer tremble in unholy terror. She would have dismissed him long ago except he had bowed to her edicts once made, giving her nocause, and the other men obeyed him, fearing him more than they did her, she had no doubt. He still suggested harsher punishments than she thought necessary, but he always acceded to her judgments, albeit with ill grace.
She reached the hall, finding it well lit, the manor folk milling about in small groups, but avoiding the tables that had been set up. She could imagine that half of them were anxious that the days of little or no food were returning. They should all know better, yet old fears were hard to let go of. New fears were easier to set aside, and she was pleased to note that conversations no longer ceased when she walked into a room, as they had for most of her first year here. Of course, it had never been she who had caused this phenomenon, but her shadow, which was perfectly understandable.
Turgeis Ten Feet was his name, the “Ten Feet” an exaggeration, as were most Viking names, but not by much in Turgeis’s case. Seven feet tall he was, and barrel-chested, a great bear of a man with a shaggy mane and beard of bright red, and gentle brown eyes—at least she thought them gentle eyes. No one else did, not even her brother, for Turgeis, with his great ax three times the size of a normal one, could inspire fear in the stoutest heart. And he was never far from Erika’s side, never beyond the sound of her voice.
It had been so since her tenth year, when she had found him near her secret pond, where she went to escape the bickering and unpleasantness of her home. He had been halfdead, lying in a pool of his own blood, with an ax embedded in his back and a half-dozen gaping slashes on other parts of his body. He was Norwegian and had been sold into slavery by his own brother, who had been jealous of him, and feared him, and been promised by the unscrupulous slave traders that Turgeis would be lost in the slave markets of the Far East. The crew had taunted him that he would fetch a great price as a harem guard, but would have to lose his manhood first. Little wonder he tried to escape when the ship put in for supplies at her family’s dock. The entire crew had given chase, and their bodies littered the woods from the docks to her secret pool.
Erika had learned all of this later, but it was his body that concerned her. To bring help to him would give away her private spot, but to let him die and rot there would ruin it just the same. So she had taken her needle to him and applied what herbs she knew for healing, and miraculously he had lived. And while he was recovering, her father had confiscated the crewless ship and its human cargo, which he sold at Birka. Because of that, he had asked few questions about the bodies that were discovered eventually, and even less of Turgeis the day Erika brought him home and said simply, “He is my friend.” He had been her shadow ever since.
It was not such a bad thing to have a shadow like Turgeis. He was a man of few words, and she had come to understand the grunting sounds he made in response as a language of hisown. He was indeed her dearest friend. Also, he had kept her father’s heavy hand from falling on her, as it so often did on her many brothers and sisters.
