Lady Of The Lake. Elizabeth Mayne

of Leam. There was much to be disappointed over. Edon’s nephew, Embla’s husband, was missing, and the castle Edon had ordered constructed over the past decade was far from completed.

      Warwick offered little respite from the scorching sun. The barest hint of a breeze wafted against the stone walls of the fortress and promptly died. A tremendous heat had built up, inside the great stone keep, and which remained steamier than the catacombs beneath Rome. Not one open shutter allowed air to move from chamber to chamber or floor to floor.

      Oh, there were windows and openings, shutters and doors aplenty as per Edon’s construction plans. But Embla had thought it best to bolt the shutters and keep the entrances securely barred. She claimed there was no other way to protect from thieving Mercian thralls the treasures he’d had shipped to Warwick in the intervening years.

      Edon didn’t care much for Embla’s disdainful dismal of his plans and orders. Nor had the woman the vision to see that Edon’s well-planned, thick stone walls should have made the vast keep cool in spite of such intense heat— provided the windows and doors were open. Instead, the handsome structure had the appeal of a brick kiln sealed to fire pottery.

      Edon was aware of his attendants’ reactions to Warwick. Eli rolled his eyes each time he looked at the steamy green forest, nor could Rashid hide his own awe of the great woods blanketing acres and acres of land. Eloya and Rebecca were near to fainting from the unaccountable heat. They had, in desperation, taken over the bathhouse.

      “Tell me,” Edon said easily, putting aside the goblet of watered wine his niece had provided him from her own stores. “When was the last you saw your husband? He has been missing seven moons now, Guthrum said.”

      “Eleven moons,” Embla corrected. Her thick fingers tightened on the handle of her short sword. Were she a man that gesture would have made Edon wary. Were he less of a Viking, he might have taken insult. “Too long, my lord Edon. I have given up hope of ever seeing Harald Jorgensson alive again.”

      “Surely not.” Edon lifted a hand, inviting her to sit and rest, but Embla ignored it. “You are a Dane’s wife,” he continued. “Your man could be on the high seas. He could this moment be turning his long ship into the north wind or trading for jewels and furs that will please you. Eleven months is nothing. I myself have been on voyages exceeding three years duration.”

      “Forgive me for reminding you, Jarl Edon, but the Avon has no outlet to the sea,” Embla replied.

      “Ah, but long ships do traverse the other rivers. The Severn and the Trent both have access to salt water.”

      “Not good access from deep inland, Jarl Edon. Weirs prevent even the most stalwart of long ships safe passage. No, my Harald has not gone exploring. I know what has happened to him—he was murdered by the druids. Else he remains a captive in the dungeon of the keep on Black Lake.”

      “If you think him a captive, why have you not assaulted this keep?”

      “No one can reach the lake in the heart of Arden Wood,” Embla told him. “The druids have strewn charms all through the forest, disguising the trails. The witch has cast terrible spells that turn even my bravest warriors into terrified madmen. No, my Harald has been murdered, Jarl Edon. I know it, and none can convince me otherwise.”

      Edon made a rumbling noise in his throat as he considered her words. “So my brother Guthrum has informed me, but he said there was no proof to that charge. Harald’s body has not been found. Is that true?”

      “Aye.” Embla’s jaw tightened. “Harald disappeared the night of the great druid sacrifice to their god Lugh, August 1.”

      “I had not realized there were druids still practicing in these isles,” Edon mused absently. “How curious…and here I thought the Romans put them all to the sword.”

      “The savages exist,” Embla said intractably.

      She turned her back to Edon, and for an unguarded moment she glared at his entourage. His wagons, sleds and carts filled the entire ward of her utterly inadequate wooden palisade. In Constantinople, where Edon had spent seven years as Guthrum’s hostage-emissary, such a structure intended for defense would have been torched the moment it was erected, just to prove how useless it was.

      “Are you absolutely certain of the date of Harald’s disappearance?” Edon asked. “It was at Lammas?”

      Embla grasped the wood stakes and tilted her chin, exposing a long throat and wondrous white teeth as she laughed scornfully. “Why wouldn’t I be certain? You haven’t lived here for years as I have done. It was August 1, the feast of Lughnasa. The night the druids sacrifice a living man to their gods of the lakes and rivers.”

      “Granted, it has been years since I last lived in Warwick, Lady Embla,” Edon said smoothly, “but I remember the people well. They are for the most part a breed of peaceful, simple farmers.”

      Embla snorted. “They are cannibals. Men are put to death over their Beltane fires. Infants are slaughtered and their bones thrown beneath the foundations of their houses.”

      “That uncivilized, are they?” Edon remarked with a raised brow. “How amazingly similar we are then. Vikings leave their newborns outside to weather the elements the first night of their lives. By Byzantine and Roman standards we are both barbarians, are we not?”

      Embla checked herself. Her blue eyes hardened in judgment of the Viking jarl before her. She thought him a lazy wretch, a weakling softened by the pampered life of a courtier. He was of no use to a woman determined to amass her own inviolate wealth.

      Thank Odin, Guthrum had provided her adequate warning of the jarl’s arrival. She’d wished Edon Halfdansson dead many times over the years of her tenancy in Warwick.

      Now that she saw him in the flesh for the first time, Embla gave the pampered Wolf of Warwick one sennight in his home shire, certain he wouldn’t last that long before he hightailed it to a retreat in Anglia.

      She raised a brow, inquiring archly, “Does our home wine not suit your palate?”

      Edon wasn’t so easily baited. “I saw no grapevines thriving in your arid fields.”

      “How observant you are, Lord Edon.” Embla’s tone changed smoothly, and she smiled as she pointed south over the spikes of the wood palisade. “Crowland Abbey was fortuitously placed, as was another monastery in Evesham. Both were pitiful places where monks wore out their knees endlessly in prayer. Their vines were well established. Their cellars were also quite full. It was nothing to dispatch the monks to their Christian hell and relieve them of their surplus.”

      Edon sampled another taste of the unpalatable wine and deliberately changed the subject. “So who is it that you believe murdered my nephew?”

      Embla turned to face him. Her fingers clasped the hilt of her sword again. “The druid, Tegwin.” She straightened, as if refusing to grant Edon dominance over her, despite his height.

      He set the cup aside. “What happened to the wine cellar I ordered my nephew to construct? Every casket I’ve brought with me will sour in this heat if it is not properly sheltered from the heat and the sun.”

      Embla held a firm check on her simmering temper. She looked toward the fields, which she believed showed her best efforts very clearly. This hideous stone castle of Edon’s had no value or importance. The fertile land wrested from the hands of the lazy Leamurian farmers held the true worth of Warwick.

      “I have altered some of your plans, Lord Edon. Owing to the bedrock here at the summit of the hill, it was necessary to place one or two of your requested conveniences elsewhere. Now that you have quenched your thirst, shall I give you a tour?”

      “By all means,” Edon agreed, eager to inspect every inch of his property.

      The stone keep was primitive and crude to Edon’s eye. But then he was accustomed to the splendors of Constantinople, that gem of cities bustling with artisans, philosophers and scholars.

      In time, Edon knew, his own