“So you say. His contention says differently. Yet are you challenged now, so it really no longer matters who is telling the truth, does it? So do you accept, or do you let him cut you down where you lie? And I assure you, he would not hesitate to do so.”
Durwyn got hastily to his feet and said shakily, “I accept—but I need time to recover from my travels first. I am no longer a young man.”
Royce heard the snorts clearly, two of them, and knew without looking that they came from Turgeis and Garrick, both older men than Durwyn, who was not yet twoscore years. Durwyn’s flush said he had also heard them. Yet was it Alfred who decided the matter.
“Three hours hence, my lords. Lord Durwyn may rest during that time, break his fast, sharpen his weapons. What he may not do is depart Wyndhurst without my leave. And there will be no wergild accepted in lieu of this challenge. Unless I hear a confession in the interim, the challenge will go forward as issued and accepted.”
Chapter 44
“MY LADY, YOU must come with me.”
Erika turned from tossing pebbles in the lake to see a short, dark-haired man-at-arms at the top of the bank. She didn’t recognize him, but then, Wyndhurst had so many soldiers, and she would know by sight only those she had traveled with from East Anglia.
“Who are you?”
“Ogden, my lady. Your husband has issued a challenge and would like to speak with you before he fights. He has men searching for you every—”
“Who is he fighting? That Lord Durwyn who masquerades as a thief?”
She was rushing up the embankment too quickly to note the man’s clenched jaw and baleful stare. “Aye, Lord Durwyn,” he answered tightly. “You will have to ride with me. We must make haste.”
Haste? Her heart was already racing. She would have run all the way back to Wyndhurst had it been necessary. And in fact, she did run past Ogden to the waiting horses. Another man stood with them. Still another was already riding hell-bent back toward Wyndhurst, obviously to inform others that she had been found.
“Well, hurry!” she snapped at the two who had been left to escort her, trying to mount one of the animals without assistance.
She was boosted up to the saddle before she had managed it herself, and Ogden mounted behind her. They set out immediately, and at a gallop that matched her state of urgency. She was frantic with dread. Why would Selig want to speak to her before he fought? Did he think he might not survive? Did he have things to tell her that she had longed to hear, but would be hearing too late?
At the speed they were making, it took only a few minutes for Erika to realize that they weren’t riding toward Wyndhurst. “Where do they fight, if not at the manor?” she turned to ask Ogden.
“We are almost there,” was his only answer.
No sooner had he said it than she saw the camp in the distance. She didn’t bother to wonder why this place on the edge of a woods had been chosen for the challenge. She would find out in moments, and in fact, it was only another minute or so until they burst into the camp, retaining their speed until the last second.
Erika was practically thrown from the saddle, the horse had stopped so abruptly, and then she was tossed down, literally, and just barely caught by one of the men on the ground. When she regained her balance, she started to upbraid her escort, but didn’t get the chance, his orders issuing first.
“Bind her and put her in the pit. I trust you have had time to finish it?”
“’Tis almost done,” replied the man who had caught Erika and was still holding her arms.
“Then that is done enough,” Ogden said. “She is a woman, so it does not have to be as deep as the others, and we cannot take the chance of someone coming by and finding her. See to it immediately.”
Erika tried to jerk loose of the man at her back, but he was a stocky fellow and too strong. His hold only tightened to a painful grip.
“What means this?” she demanded, glaring up at Ogden. “You lied?”
“Only about who sent me to find you. My Lord Durwyn was challenged, and if your husband cannot be made to retract it for your sake, you die.”
“Is your lord such a coward, then, that he fears to fight in single combat?”
“You jest, lady. I was told your husband is nigh a giant, and a Viking berserker besides. Any man would be a fool to face him in battle.”
It was amazing that she could feel pride in those words even as impotent rage rushed through her. Her being here was her fault, for going down to the hall this morning without stopping by Turgeis’s room to tell him, for leaving Wyndhurst alone, for being so gullible that she had come right along with her kidnappers, had even urged them to hurry—so she could be thrown into a pit. A pit! Odin help her, she was afraid theirs would have no resemblance to the one at Gronwood, but would be an actual hole in the ground.
Having said all he intended to, Ogden rode off, back to Wyndhurst, she assumed, to tell his cowardly lord that she had been captured as ordered. And Erika was dragged over to the start of the tree line, where, a few feet beyond, two men were pouring dirt into a crate that another man waited to carry off into the woods to dispose of, thereby leaving no evidence that a hole had been dug.
The pit was there, three feet long by two feet wide. Near it was a plank of wood the same size, and on top of that, the grass that had been carefully cut away from the top of the hole, so that when it was replaced, there would be little or no evidence that a hole was beneath it—or anyone inside it.
“You heard?”
“Aye,” one of the diggers replied, the one standing hip-deep in the hole in the ground.
“Then get out of there,” the man holding Erika said, then called loudly over his shoulder, “I need some rope over here and some thing for a gag.”
Erika fought to keep from trembling. They were going to put her in that pit. There were at least twenty men in that camp. She wasn’t going to get away. And she could conceivably die in that hole if she was never let out.
“You dig pits everywhere you make camp?”
She said it to be sarcastic, to take her mind off her mounting fear, but the one holding her took her question seriously. “Always. We have found them most useful, and they are never discovered.”
“But how can you dig it so quickly? Your lord just came this morn.”
“’Twas started last week when we stopped here briefly while Lord Durwyn sought the king at yon manor. There was no time to finish it then.”
“So you have finished it now. Then you must kidnap people everywhere you go?”
He shook his head. “It is sometimes necessary to hide one or more of us. With these pits, a man can completely disappear from sight, in the middle of the day, with no trace or clue left for his pursuers.”
“Ah, so you have become thieves as well as murderers under your brave lord’s guidance,” she sneered. “Now do I see the necessity for these pits.”
Her scathing contempt infuriated the man, so that he shouted at whoever had come up behind them with the requested items. “Gag her!”
It was done with swift efficiency, her binding. She managed half a scream before cloth was stuffed in her mouth and tied off. She was then pushed to the ground, her knees bent to her chest, a rope wound tight around her to keep her in that scrunched-up position. It was not even necessary to bind her hands separately, the rope looping around her so many times keeping her arms tight at her sides, yet still her wrists had been tied at her back, merely to add to her discomfort, no doubt. And they had tried to deny doing this before with other victims? Craven churls, the lot of them.
But the moment she was dropped into the pit and the cover was pushed into place, sealing out every trace of daylight, she no longer thought of Durwyn’s men. Pitch blackness. The air was so thick with the scent of newly cut earth that she could barely breathe. And it was cold. Who would have thought a tightly enclosed space could be so cold? Or was it her own blood, freezing with fear?
How long? Surely if a challenge was issued, it woul
d be seen to right away. But they wanted Selig to cry off. She was being used to that end, but at what success? His compliance was certainly not guaranteed. The revenge he had been unable to extract from her he wanted out of Lord Durwyn, and he wanted it badly. She had realized that when he told her about Durwyn. So what would a man do who didn’t love his wife? See to his honor first, then merely hope he could find the wife before she was murdered?
She was so afraid that Selig would do just that, she already counted herself dead. And not another thing needed to be done to have Durwyn’s threat carried out. Why bother to drag her out of the pit just to cut her throat? Leaving her there with no escape and no hope of ever being found was just as effective and much crueler. This pit would be her grave and she would die knowing it.
Chapter 45
“WHAT DO YOU mean, you cannot find her?” Selig asked, sitting up from his slouch against the wall, where he had been staring at Durwyn on the far side of the hall, savoring his anticipation of the coming fight. The man had only one hour left to live. “Where have you looked?”
“Everywhere,” Turgeis replied.
It was the look of worry that was revealed, just briefly, in Turgeis’s expression that was responsible for the panic that burst on Selig without warning. “Where in Loki’s realm were you?” he demanded. “You are her shadow! I trust you to always know where she is when I do not!”
“She did not let me know she was leaving her room. I have not seen her at all this morn.”
Selig’s raised voice drew Royce and Kristen. Kristen asked her brother, “Have you seen her since you came down?” When Selig shook his head, she added, “I did, briefly. She was on her way out to the bailey.” Then she asked Turgeis, “Did you check Selig’s hall? She could have gone there.”
“She would not leave Wyndhurst alone,” Turgeis insisted. “She is not that foolish.”
“If she were…upset…she might not have been thinking of caution,” Kristen replied hesitantly.
“For what reason would she be upset?” Turgeis demanded, a growl entering his tone.
“She is always upset,” Selig answered before Kristen could, relieved now that Erika’s whereabouts had been guessed at. “Why would today be any different?” Then he turned to Royce. “Would you send someone to make sure she has gone home? I will not be able to concentrate on my fight with Durwyn unless I know she is safe.”
“Do you want her returned here?”
“If she left early, she may not even know that I fight. She can be told, but the decision will be hers if she wants to return for it. I would not force her to watch if she has no interest—”
“God’s mercy, spare us such self-pity,” Royce cut in, laughing now. “You know very well your wife would want to be here.”
Kristen’s conscience would not let her remain quiet any longer. She opened her mouth to confess why Erika had likely left, and her part in it, but she didn’t get the chance. One of the servants was shouting for Royce as he raced toward them, and when he arrived, out of breath, terrified, what he had to say made her confession irrelevant—for the moment.
Only Selig could not understand what Royce was told, and demanded, “What?” when he saw so many grave faces turning in his direction.
Royce answered, “The message he was given is for you, and you will not like it.”
“Tell me.”
“‘You will claim you are mistaken in your accusations against Lord Durwyn, or you will never see your wife again. And the king is not to know of this, or you will never see your wife again.’”
Selig lifted the servant up by one hand. “Who gave you that message?”
Royce had to repeat the question in Saxon, and after listening to the man’s frightened response, he told Selig, “Put him down, man. He did not see who it was. He was approached from behind, told exactly what to tell you, then pushed into the crowd. When he turned, there were too many men about to know which one had spoken to him.”
“But I know who sent the message,” Selig said and started across the hall with deadly purpose.
Royce went after him and grabbed his arm, but was thrust aside. Durwyn saw him coming and leapt to his feet, but to no purpose. Selig was on him, his hands closing around his throat. It took five men to pull him off, and he let go of Durwyn only long enough to throw off those restraining him, which he did right quickly.
It took his father to step in front of him and push him back when he went for Durwyn a second time. “Are you mad?” Garrick demanded. “What has happened that you cannot wait to end him properly?”
“He has taken Erika,” Selig replied furiously. “He threatens her life if I do not retract the challenge and claim I was mistaken in accusing him.”
“But he has not left this hall,” Garrick pointed out.
“He does not have to. He has men aplenty with him to do the deed.”
At that moment Durwyn rallied sufficiently to cry, “What does the heathen accuse me of now?”
Selig didn’t understand him, but Garrick did and rounded on the man. “You should have taken your chance at fighting my son, because you prove your guilt by taking his wife to tie his hands. And if he withdraws his challenge because of it, be apprised that you now have one from me.”
Durwyn said nothing at first, was staring in horror at King Alfred, who was near enough to have heard every word. Then he yelled, “’Tis a lie! All of it! If someone has taken the Viking’s wife, ’twas not done by my order!”
At that point Royce pulled Selig away and pushed him toward the front of the hall. “You will get nothing out of him,” he hissed. “The bastard will die swearing innocence. But you were a fool to attack him, proving his guilt. You should have closed the gates first. Whoever works with him has now been given the opportunity to leave—and to carry out his threat.”
Selig was running toward the door before Royce had finished speaking, though Royce kept up with him. They both stopped, however, upon reaching the bailey and seeing the gates already closed and Turgeis standing in front of them, his own horse and Selig’s at the ready.
“At least someone was thinking with his head instead of his heart,” Royce said wryly. “Go ahead. It will take me a few minutes to send out my men in a wide enough sphere that a call can go out and be heard as soon as she is found—and to make sure only my people leave.”
There was no longer a need for such tearing haste, now that Durwyn’s henchmen were contained within the walls, except to get Erika freed the sooner. And that was all the reason Selig needed to continue with all speed.
He did spare a moment to say, “Thank you,” to Turgeis when he reached him.
The giant merely said, “You were too fraught with emotion to think of it. Did the lord tell you where she is?”
“Nay,” Selig replied bitterly. “But he has men camped somewhere near here. That much I already knew. Royce is gathering his men now to spread wide the search. Whoever finds the camp first will call out.”
“They can call out, but I will not,” Turgeis said as they both mounted. “I will see to the matter myself.”
“Then I ride with you.”
Chapter 46
THE CAMP WAS easily seen from a distance. No effort had been made to conceal it, though a woods was right there and could have been used. It was even in the first logical place to look, west of Wyndhurst, the direction from which the king’s party had come.
Turgeis spotted it first and galloped in that direction. Selig, so anxious to have Erika rescued and safe again, overtook him. Unfortunately, the way they both charged into the camp gave every indication of attack, and not one man scattered or tried to run, but drew his weapon instead. There were twenty against two. Durwyn’s men considered the odds too high in their favor to lose, despite the size of the Vikings. So they attacked en masse.
For Selig and Turgeis, that meant every blow they struck had to be a killing blow, with none wasted, which had not been anticipated, but was the only way to keep from being felled themselves. Seli
g would not have killed them all, yet it looked like they might have to. He tried to locate Erika in the camp, but there was no opportunity to see beyond the next sword thrust. Yet until they were assured she was there and not taken elsewhere, someone had to be alive to answer questions when this was done, but the bodies were already piling up.
He shouted to Turgeis, who had an equal number of men coming at him from all sides. “Leave at least one alive to tell us where she has been taken.”
“You see to it,” Turgeis called back. “My Blooddrinker does not leave wounds that might heal.”
Not long after that, Selig cut down two of the last three men attacking him with a single lucky stroke. The third man, realizing that he now stood alone, started backing up, terror in his eyes.
“Tell me where the woman is and you can go free,” Selig promised him.
The fellow didn’t understand a word he said, turned to flee, but one of his downed comrades tripped him up and he fell face-forward. Selig moved in swiftly to apprehend him, prepared to beat the information out of him if necessary, but the man didn’t get up. When Selig turned him over, there was a spiked mace embedded in his forehead. He would be answering no questions.
Selig looked immediately toward Turgeis, but the giant had already finished off his share of the attackers and was wiping his great ax on one of the dead bodies lying next to him. Selig then quickly scanned the area, his heart starting to beat harder than the battle had caused it to, but Erika wasn’t there. No one else was there. There was not even a cart she might be hidden in.
He groaned, and started checking bodies for signs of life, yelling at Turgeis to do the same. Minutes later he gave up hope and dropped to his knees, his belly gripped with fear and rage. Too much hate, too much lust, now too much fear. Everything he felt for this woman was in the extreme, and now he knew why; now, when it might be too late.
“What did they do with you?” he shouted at the sky.