Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment by Lindsay Townsend Read Free Book Online Page B

best.” Elfrida continued to stroll before the house, spinning as she walked. She could have told the lady that her whole cottage at Top Yarr was a stills room, the place where she made her more complex potions and completed her most potent magic.
    The house Magnus and I need to return to soon, so I may care for the villagers there.
    Once we have recovered the lost girls…
    Magnus was always glad to go back with her. He would hunt and plough and fish with the menfolk, and they would joke and carouse with him. Even the women of Top Yarr no longer flinched or crossed themselves when they encountered her scarred, hulking husband. He was accepted.
    He has an ease with them that I cannot have with this lady .
    About an hour had passed since Magnus had galloped away and already the day dragged. Crisp in her fresh red gown and white veil, both hurriedly snatched from her tiny chest in the solar that morning while Lady Astrid was still abed, Elfrida knew that she looked more the part of an elegant lady, but she could not feel it.
    “Have you any tapestry I can sew?” Hiding a yawn behind her hand, Lady Astrid crossed her legs, one over the other, the opposing way round. “You Saxons are said to have great skill with embroidery.”
    Not this Saxon .
    “No? Shall we play chess here on the bench? Githa can bring us my set.”
    Chess was the new eastern game that Magnus was still teaching her. “I cannot warm to it,” Elfrida admitted candidly. “There is only one woman on the board.”
    “The queen, yes. A queen with power.”
    “To destroy.”
    Lady Astrid narrowed her eyes. “Can you be so…innocent? To understand chess is to appreciate tactics.”
    “Magnus is the warrior.” I am the healer.
    Her fingers tightened on the spindle and the thread strained as Elfrida heard her own grudging responses. The lady was clearly reluctant to speak of Rowena or of the child’s kindred, which she found strange and disturbing. Yet as a matter of simple courtesy she herself should be trying harder to discover a topic of conversation that her guest would enjoy, and giving fuller answers. “Forgive me, Lady Astrid. That was not so well put.”
    “ Mon Dieu ! For sure it was not! What if this handsome manor were attacked while your warrior is gone? Have you any idea how to fight a siege? How to preserve this household for your lord?”
    The lady’s earnestness transformed her from a shapely, blond beauty clothed in black and yellow into a creature of airy fire. Decisive as any queen, she flung aside her own small harp and launched herself off the bench. Sweeping into the great hall at a speed that had her be-ribboned plaits bouncing against her knees, Lady Astrid rushed back moments later in a jangle of silver bells. Today she wore no head covering and her hair was eye-achingly bright, her face a challenge.
    Elfrida could not miss the staff the woman carried. What now? Does she want to beat me, outside my own house, in front of my own people? Why? To humiliate me? Is this how noble womenfolk behave?
    Knights, she knew, were bred to fight, but it appeared their ladies were equally belligerent.
    “Here.” Lady Astrid threw her the staff, smiling as Elfrida caught it while almost dropping the wool off her spindle and the whole skein of thread into the dust. “Let us start with simple things first. Do you know how to attack? To defend? Come at me.”
    One of Lady Astrid’s men, crouched close to the bench playing a solitary game of dice, looked up and smirked. He expects me to lose or draw back and be whispered a coward.
    Another of the lady’s men, a squire with one half of his head shaved, perhaps because of previous illness or worms, called out a warning and encouragement in Norman French.
    Lady Astrid has maneuvered this so whatever I do I will be in the wrong. If I am defeated, her party will consider me and possibly even Magnus as weaklings and her pride will know no bounds. If I best her, I will fail in my duty as