Surrender My Love by Johanna Lindsey Read Free Book Online

The sun was definitely on its descent, giving him the right direction to take. And he now had a sack of victuals in his possession that would last him a day or two, thanks to the goodwife. It was, in fact, almost too heavy for him to carry, since he needed all his strength just to put one foot in front of the other. His unexplained weakness was still perplexing him, and his head still hurt too much for him to concentrate on that or the other puzzles plaguing him.
    Hours passed, the sun set, the sky slowly darkened, and Selig’s strength was nearly gone—but his luck was holding. There was just enough light left to make out the manor he had come to at last, a large hall well fortified by thick wooden walls surrounding it. He wasn’t sure if they had passed it on the way to East Anglia, but a place this large had to have at least one person who could speak Celtic.
    He followed the high wall around to the gate, anticipating a soft bed, anticipating women fussing over him and seeing to his comfort. But he didn’t quite make it to the gate. Dizziness assailed him again, and he slumped downagainst the wall, unable to go on until it passed.
    He thought he heard voices on the other side of the wall, but they were too low for him to distinguish any of the words, and he wasn’t sure he had enough strength left to call out loudly enough to be heard. It wasn’t necessary. Four riders approached the gate, likely a returning patrol, and two veered off in his direction. Selig sighed in relief, which was unfortunately a bit premature, for it was not help he found in this place, but the agonies of hell.

Chapter 7
    E RIKA HAD VAGUELY noticed the returning patrol on her way to the hall. She was late for the evening meal again, a recurring habit of late, thanks to their wily thief. The culprit had struck once more that afternoon, this time stealing a piece of jewelry, hers. So her mind was preoccupied with that and her frustration at being unable to catch the thief after so many weeks of trying.
    But she had no sooner reached the high table and greeted her nephew with a great hug than one of the guards appeared at her side to tell her that Wulnoth had captured a spy and requested permission to hang him. Typical of Wulnoth, to ask for judgment before she had time to even think about it—or hear all the facts.
    “Bring the prisoner here anon, when the hall is less crowded,” she told the guard.
    He hesitated uneasily before replying. “’Twould be a kindness, milady, did you come to him instead. It took six men to drag him to the pit. He refuses to walk.”
    “Why is that?”

    “He would not say—actually, he speaks a tongue we know not.”
    She scoffed at that. “Come, now, if the man is a spy, he must be able to understand us, or he could learn naught except what he or anyone else can plainly see. Why does Wulnoth accuse him?”
    “He did not say.”
    Erika sighed. “Very well, I will come after I have eaten. Surely this matter will wait until then?”
    He blushed at her dry tone, nodded, and hurried away. But as she partook of the fare set before her, she did so absently, puzzling over the guard’s words. Six men to get one into the pit? That made no sense whatsoever, unless this supposed spy was someone like Turgeis; and to her knowledge, Turgeis was one of a kind.
    But her curiosity had been aroused, which had her leaving the hall before her hunger had been completely appeased. Her shadow, of course, followed, looking back longingly at his own unfinished meal, for his appetite was perforce much greater than hers.
    The pit was no longer the deep hole in the earth that it had once been, that prisoners had been tossed into. It was now a sturdy shed of modest size, without windows, and with chains attached to each wall. The name it was called was the only thing that was the same about it.
    Erika had been there only once before, not because there had been so few prisoners, butbecause she preferred to deal with them in the hall,