In her defense, she’d been unable to help herself, so overcome had she been at the realization that for the first time in her life she was in love. Who wouldn’t be, after that visit to the rose garden? But, if she’d thought even for a second, she would have kept her big mouth shut.
He doesn’t want me, and I have to accept that, she told herself over and over as she bustled about the keep instructing the children on their behavior once Loncaster arrived, mostly to say nothing. She gave several of them, including Henry, a last-minute head shave. By her count, there were fifteen boylings and twenty-two men with bald heads. Henry would stick by Ordulf’s wife, Anne, alongside their daughter Beth; Anne would be holding a baby, the implication of course that Henry was Ordulf and Anne’s son. Luckily, Anne had blue eyes, like Henry’s.
Maybe I could seduce John into changing his mind, she argued with herself, watching him from across the hall as he donned a brynja under a black surcoat. What a different picture from the man who only wanted to work with bees! A sword was sheathed on one side of his waist and a long knife on the other. His men were stationed throughout the keep and courtyard with deliberate displays of arms. Loncaster would know he was coming into a hostile environment.
But, nay, even if I had the seduction skills, John’s reluctance is not about good lovemaking. John has good reason not to marry. To him marriage entails children. When he glanced her way, and their eyes held, she knew that he was unhappy about her declaration of love. Maybe he was having the same troubling thoughts she was.
Walking up to her, he asked, “Are you ready?”
She nodded. Mayhap if I agreed to never have children…Nay, that wouldn’t work. We’d never last a month, let alone a lifetime, sharing a bed without consummation. Eventually, he would find a woman with whom he could complete the sex act. A woman unable to conceive.
“Why do you look so doleful?”
Could he really be that thickheaded? “I’m afraid Loncaster will get me alone.”
“I’ll stick close to you, if I can. Otherwise, Hamr will be nearby.”
She nodded again. I need to face facts. Someone like Joanna is more suitable. “John, about what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. It was a jest.” Believe that, and I have a desert to sell you in Iceland.
“Nay, nay, nay! Those are words that cannot be taken back.”
What? Is he saying he welcomes the words? Or is he pricking me at the idiocy of my sentiments? “Well, don’t worry that I will be doing anything about it.”
“Like what? I have an idea.” He grinned. Then he winked at her.
And with just that twitch of his lips and wicked wink, she was hopeful. Maybe they had a chance after all.
“You could come to my bed furs tonight. I’ll show you the marble wand.”
Not so hopeful after all. It still came down to loveplay. Half-baked loveplay, in her opinion, if all it encompassed was sex. Why can’t I be content with just that?
There was no opportunity to pursue the subject further, because the sound of horses’ hooves on the wooden drawbridge echoed through the open double doors of the hall.
John squeezed her hand and was off to join a contingent of his men who waited outside. A greeting party, so to speak.
She stepped up to the doorway and watched as Loncaster and a dozen armed men dismounted. Immediately John approached Loncaster, and they began arguing. Both John’s housecarls and Loncaster’s troops had their hands on the hilts of their swords. A tense moment, to say the least.
Loncaster noticed her standing in the doorway. With his face turning nigh red with anger, he was about to stomp up the many steps to confront her when John put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. They exchanged more angry words. Soon, though, both men began the ascent while Ordulf and Hamr led Loncaster’s men toward the stables.
“Lady Ingrith! You defied my order by leaving Rainstead,” Loncaster said right off, pointing a finger sharply in her direction. “Methinks you are either daft or unaware that my orders carry the weight of the king.”
“You did not order me to stay at Rainstead. You merely said you would be coming to visit sometime.” She backed up a bit, and John moved quickly to her side. Looping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her against him into a pose that bespoke a close relationship.
“What is going on here?” Loncaster’s piercing eyes took in the position of John’s arm as well as the mark on Ingrith’s neck, which she’d made sure to expose by arranging her braided hair atop her head.
“Watch the way you address my betrothed,” John warned.
Ingrith had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from saying, “Whaaaaat?”
“Since when?” Loncaster demanded.
John motioned for a serving maid to bring ale, and he led her and Loncaster to a nearby table. She noticed Bolthor standing nearby with a battle-axe in his hands along with several of John’s housecarls. Some of Loncaster’s hird had entered the keep, as well, and awaited orders.
After they’d sat down, she and John on one side and Loncaster on the other, John replied, “Ingrith and I have known each other for years. I would have wed her long ago, except she resisted my proposals. Didn’t you, heartling?” John gave her a besotted look that would have looked silly on anyone else.
“Why did you lead me on?” Loncaster demanded of Ingrith.
“I did not lead you on,” she said huffily. “Besides, I was not betrothed last time we met.”
“You do not fool me with this ploy, Hawk, and you will not get away with such deceit. King Edgar promised the wench to me, and I will have her.”
Ingrith groaned inwardly. Oh, this was bad. Very bad. How dare the king make a decision about her life? The answer: Because he could. I should have stayed in the Norselands. At least the only danger there was a wart-nosed suitor.
“The ‘wench’ is a lady,” John reminded Loncaster. “Speak to her with respect, or you will not address her at all.”
For once, Ingrith was satisfied to let someone do the talking for her.
Loncaster let his rude gaze survey her silent form. “Suddenly she has become biddable?”
John chuckled and squeezed her shoulder. “Not at all. It is one of the things I love about her.”
Did he say love? He probably didn’t mean it. But, oh, gods, how good it sounds!
“And what is going on with all the shaved heads?” Loncaster eyed John’s and Bolthor’s bald pates with distaste.
“Head lice,” John said with disgust. “We had a large head-lice problem here at Hawk’s Lair. The buggers get in the ear and nose hair, too. Be careful where you lay, lest there be some still about.”
“Enough games! Where is the boy?”
“What boy?” Ingrith asked.
Loncaster growled. He actually growled. If John hadn’t been sitting beside her, he would probably have throttled her. “The king’s whelp. Henry. I have instructions to return with the child to Winchester.” He slapped a folded parchment with the royal seal on the table between them. While she and John read, Loncaster lifted his cup and drained it of ale to the bottom in one long swallow. Immediately, a maid scurried up to give him a refill, to which he didn’t even give a nod of thanks. Instead, he continued to scowl at them.
John shoved the letter back to Loncaster, and Ingrith said, “The boy is not here.”
“You lie, m’lady. Have a caution. If I do not believe you, that means the king does not believe you.” Loncaster’s dark eyes accused Ingrith. He might be a bully, but he was an intelligent one. “That bloody orphanage outside Jorvik emptied quicker than a bladder of piss when you knew I was coming for the boy. An orphanage which is, by the by, now burned to the ground.”
Ingrith gasped with horror, and she could feel John tense beside her.
“Wouldst care to explain the reason for the hasty exit?”
“It is always good to get out of the city during the summer months. The heat and flies and such.”
“Pfff!” he scoffed. “Either you have
Henry, or you know who does.”
“Why is the boy so important?” John inserted.
Loncaster shrugged. “Every single succession to the throne in the past century has been contested. While Edgar has two legitimate children, Edward and Ethelred, they are young. If something happened to the king, there would be a flurry of rats like you could not imagine to influence who accedes to the throne and who will be the guardian. Archbishop Dunstan, who has the king’s ear, for one. Then, there is Edgar’s second wife, Elfrida. Have you met her?”
John nodded. “A great beauty.”
“Hah! You would not think so if you were around her for long. The woman seeps ambition for her son Ethelred like venom. Any who dare dispute her claims gets snakebit, for sure.”
“What has Henry to do with this?” Ingrith asked. “There are two legitimate heirs…and Edgar is young yet…only twenty-seven, I believe. He may have other children.”
“M’lady, you do not understand court politics. In order to secure the throne, all contenders…and I mean all, must be eliminated. Edgar is a good king, in many ways, but he has the sexual appetite of a satyr. God only knows how many illegitimate children around the countryside carry his blood. Like Henry. All are considered threats. Even the daughter being raised in a Wilton convent by that abbess he raped.”
“You can see then why we…I mean, people…would want to protect Henry,” Ingrith said. “His life is in danger.”
“Not if the king, or even Dunstan, takes him under their sheilds.”
“What if Henry renounces any claim to the throne? My stepfather’s father, Thork, a son of King Haraldsson, did so. Wouldn’t that be enough?” John asked.
Loncaster shook his head. “Mayhap if he were older. But the word of a child of five would be discounted. In any case, release the child to me, and I will take him back to the king.”
“With the assurance that naught will happen to him?” Ingrith returned Loncaster’s grim look, stare for stare.
“Whilst under my protection, he is safe,” Loncaster promised.
“And when Edgar, or Dunstan, takes him in hand, I assume the boy would be fostered out to some friend of the court,” John said.
“No doubt,” Loncaster agreed. “But that is not my problem.”
But it is mine, Ingrith thought, and repeated her lie, “The boy is not here. You may search, if you do not believe me.”
“Oh, you can be sure we will search. And do not think that the business betwixt you and me is over, m’lady. I will return with the king’s order forthwith. There’d better not be a marriage in the meantime.”
Unfortunately, there would not be.
For the next several hours, Loncaster and his men examined every nook and cranny of the keep, the stables and other outbuildings, even the privies and garderobes. Riders rode in four directions to see if the boy might be hidden somewhere on the outer extremities of the estate.
Ingrith forced herself to stay in the kitchen preparing a cold meal for Loncaster and his men to eat…before departing, she hoped. John, Ordulf, Hamr, Bolthor, and even Ubbi stayed in strategic places, watching the men search. It was only through a surreptitious whisper from Katherine that Ingrith learned how Henry had fared. Very well, mainly by not saying a word, and hugging the legs of his “mother.”
She had just gone into the laundry room, which was located in a separate building attached by a covered walkway, when Loncaster trapped her, alone. Yanking her inside, he slammed her against the wooden wall and held her there in a painful grip on her upper arms.
“Where is the boy?” he spat out.
“I don’t know,” she stammered through chattering teeth.
“You lying bitch!” With the pincer-hold on her arms, he shook her so hard that her braided coronet started to unravel. “Where is the boy?”
It took all her nerve to raise her chin. “I don’t know.”
His attention riveted on the love mark on her neck then. “Another thing…I would have married you afore, but now that you have given your favors freely to another, I will make you my whore. Do not doubt my words. Edgar owes me too much not to grant me the boon of your body.”
“Never! You will ne’er have me, you brute.”
“Defy me, and you will find yourself living in hell. I will kill any who stand in my path. Your lover, first of all.”
“You would kill John?” she asked tremulously. “Mayhap you are not aware that he has friends in high places. Including his stepfather, who is on the king’s Witan.”
Loncaster shrugged. “A stab in the back in a dark corridor. An arrow to the heart when he is out beekeeping. A fall down a cliff. Who could tell who the culprit was?”
“What has he done to harm you?”
“He took you and shielded the king’s bastard. The king will thank me.”
Just then, the door flew open, and John stormed in, yanking Loncaster away from Ingrith. “You bloody whoreson! I told you not to touch my lady.”
“I did her no harm. Did I, m’lady?” He glanced pointedly at John so she would get his meaning. Tell John what he had done and said, and John would be dead. If not now, some time in the future when he least expected it.
She shook her head to indicate she was unharmed. It was only later when Loncaster and his men were gone that John went to lead her to the hall for dinner, and she flinched with pain.
“What?” he asked.
“’Tis naught. A draft of cold air.”
“There is no cold air. What happened?”
“Do not make a fuss over nothing.”
Refusing to accept her words, he took her hand and led her into a solar, where he undid her apron brooches and released the laces at the neckline of her gunna, tugging it down to the elbows. There were two black and blue rings on her upper arms, which would soon turn yellow, as well. Loncaster had almost broken her bones, so hard had he gripped her.
“I will kill the man,” John seethed after he’d taken her down to his honey shed and put warm honey poultice on both bruises. He kissed one, then the other arm.
Not if he kills you first, she thought. Even if John wanted her now for more than a quick romp, she couldn’t stay and jeopardize his life. Henry and Loncaster were her problems, not his.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, he didn’t try to make love to her now. Or make lust, she corrected herself. Either way, he had more important things to do back inside the keep. Even if he had taken her in his arms now, it wouldn’t have made any difference.
First thing on the morrow, she was leaving Hawk’s Lair.
She was worth the risk, after all…
At least a dozen of his men complained about the meal that night. Not that it was bad, but prepared by the new cook, it was just regular fare.
Where was Ingrith?
That’s when he discovered the horrible truth. She was planning to leave Hawk’s Lair.
The orphan children were weeping, the cook was complaining that the job was too hard, Bolthor and Katherine were giving him dirty looks. And Hamr just grinned as if he knew something John did not.
He would have gone for her immediately, but Bolthor insisted he stay for his latest creation: “The Lesson of Danger.”
Danger ever lurks when man is near.
Cruelty abounds to make all fear.
Even children are not exempt
When greed does the powerful tempt.
But one good thing about a death threat
It reminds good men to ne’er forget:
Cherish what is most important in life.
Good health, a roof over one’s head,
A longship sturdy, a body well fed,
Strong ale, family, and good friends,
But most of all, when life ends,
The thing most missed is a woman’s love.
Truly it is the gods’ gift from above.
The wise man grabs it when he can.
This I tell you is the best plan.
Love overcomes danger any day.
As
far as Bolthor’s poems went, this one was not so bad, and John told him so. To which Bolthor replied, “Then heed the message, fool, afore your love is gone.”
“What love?”
Bolthor just shook his head at him.
It was only later, as one person after another turned away when he got near, that he finally found out the reason for the shunning. The reason the new cook had prepared the meal…the reason why Ingrith was missing from the dinner table…wasn’t due to her head megrim, which she’d claimed to have earlier. She was packing up to leave in the morning.
“Where is she?” he demanded of Ubbi after finding both his and her bedchambers empty.
The little man, who was eating in the kitchen, did not even look up.
“I asked you, gnome, where is your mistress?” he gritted out.
“Go away. My mistress has no need fer a troll.”
What if I need her? He picked Ubbi up by the scruff of the neck and shook him. “Tell me where she is or you will be turning on yon spit, and all in my keep will dine on roast gnome come morning.”
Ubbi spat out a series of foul words, but the new cook, Ardith, interceded for him. “She is in the stable packing the wagons. She plans to sleep there tonight to be ready for a dawn departure.”
“Oh, she does, does she?” He stomped toward the back door and turned at the last moment to point a finger at Ubbi, who was rubbing the back of his neck. “Stay here if you value your life.”
Wearing the tunic and braies she had arrived in—Was it only a sennight ago?—she was indeed up on the wagon, arranging various leather bags and blankets, along with stacks of bread and various other foodstuffs to carry on the road to wherever she planned to go. The wagon bed was covered with straw, no doubt to make beds for children on which to sleep along the way.