“That won’t be necessary,” Edon replied.

Looking around him he saw many thralls at their labors. Women made bread and tended the meat roasting on spits over the open fires. Edon had grown up in surroundings similar to this, as most Vikings did. Farmsteads were the backbone of Viking economy and culture. Embla’s longhouse was no different than any of a thousand like it Edon had inspected in his travels.

He thought fondly of the palaces at Rome and Alexandria. With their courtyards and splendid gardens, there was beauty everywhere a man looked. Given time, Warwick would become such a place.

He returned his attention to the woman, whose walk so reminded him of a proud man’s strut. Edon put out his hand to touch the carved bone handle of her dagger, which her fingers had flown to so often during their conversation. “This is a curious piece. Who made it?”

At the interest in her prized weapons, Embla offered a genuine smile, the first Edon noted. She proudly unsheathed the dagger and laid it in his hand, expecting his admiration. “Falkirk is my carver. He is good with bone and ivory. This is the goddess Freya hunting a boar.”

“An ambitious work.” Edon tested the weight and balance of the blade, but was truly enamored of the skill of the bone carving, the attention to detail and the beauty of the craftsmanship. This carver knew what he was about. “It is a worthy weapon. I trust you have little need to use it for defense.”

“Humph,” Embla scoffed. “Few are foolish enough to challenge me.”

“So I have heard.” Edon smiled and handed her back her knife, offering his own blade for her inspection. “Mine is more modest, but possibly more deadly in the tempering of the Damascus steel. That is what counts where weapons are concerned, is it not?” His smile faded from his lips. “It is far better to never need to have to unsheath one’s weapon in the first place.”

The jarl left Embla with those cryptic words. He walked to the well and took a dipper in his hand to quench his thirst.

Asgart, Embla’s best man, threw the bucket in the well and drew up a fresh supply after Edon had drunk his fill. Suddenly, the soldier gave with a shout and leaned over the rim. Before his eyes, the water level dropped ten feet.

Asgart’s cry of alarm brought everyone in the ward running to the well. The gathering crowd watched the water inch slowly back up the stones that lined the well. It foamed and swirled, a brackish, foul brine. The stench that arose was foul enough to make a strong man stagger.

“The well has been poisoned!” Asgard shouted. He threw the dipper and the bucket to the ground. Edon took a step back because of the stink. Sulfur wasn’t a pleasant smell, though the water he’d just drunk had been sweet and pure.

Embla ran to his side and waved her hand across the rising water, smelling the sulfur-tainted air. Fear and alarm darkened her fair cheeks.

“The well has been cursed!” she announced. “The witch has cast another spell upon us!”

Furious, she turned on Asgart, her hand clenching the hilt of her sword. “Damn you, Asgart, bring me that woman! Double your patrols. Find the witch before she causes any more harm. Bring her to me! She will pay for poisoning my well!”

“As you command.” Her captain saluted by striking his fist to his chest. Before Asgart could call his soldiers to him and comply with Embla’s orders, Edon stepped forward and laid his hand on the captain’s arm.

“There is no need to send out a search party.”

“But…” Asgart sputtered.

“Keep your men here and go about your usual business,” Edon commanded, taking charge of his land and defense of his property. “That was rather presumptuous of my niece to make such a command. I am here now. My men will see to the shire’s defense when necessary, Embla Silver Throat.”

Both the captain and the woman were stunned by Edon’s contradictory order. Only Embla spoke out against it.

“What? You don’t know what goes on here,” she sputtered.

“I know enough to realize that wells fail during droughts, and it doesn’t take witchcraft to accomplish that,” Edon replied sternly. “Send your people back to their work.”

“Get back to work!” she shouted at the thralls who had come to see what was happening. Edon found it hard to decide which frightened the people more, their mistress or their superstitions. In either case, the poor slaves backed away in alarm.

He didn’t believe in such nonsense as wells being cursed by witches. He was astute enough to see that Embla and her people did.

Edon sent one of his captains into the keep to see if the well inside had also been affected. He was met by a servant Lady Eloya had sent running from the bathhouse, to ask what had happened to the water. The sluices in the bathhouse had suddenly gone dry. Rig returned, reporting that the same rotten-egg smell affected the water well in the keep.

Edon gave his head a firm shake, regretting the bad luck of that. “Then we will have to cart water from the river below the palisade. This is quite unacceptable.”

Rig stood beside him as the others moved away. “These people are very superstitious, Lord Edon,” he said quietly.

With a meaningful glance at the retreating form of his niece by marriage, Edon said, “That they are, Rig. Let us hope that we can educate them somewhat over time. Shall we adjourn to the keep?”

Chapter Three

The day’s heat refused to dissipate until the sun sank within a handspan of the horizon. A soft breeze off the river gently cooled Tala ap Griffin on her walk to the top of Warwick Hill. The fine red glow of the setting sun made it easy for her to slip unnoticed through Warwick’s open gates and approach the stalwart keep. Her hair and her mother’s scarlet cloak simply melted into the vibrant colors of the dwindling light, making any spell for invisibility redundant. She had no need to cloak herself magically when the dwindling light accomplished all. Inside the wood palisade, a commotion drew the curious to the fortress’s communal well.

Curiously, most of the Vikings had gone inside their huts and houses. It was the time of day when their noses led them to steaming pots and fragrant haunches of sizzling venison and pork. Those that lingered in the ward paid no attention to her as she quietly approached the keep and slipped inside.

No dogs barked a warning, no shouts broke the stillness that had come over the land when the cooling breeze lifted off the river. Nothing living took any notice of Tala ap Griffin until she reached the topmost step inside the fortress and came face-to-face with a wolf.

Distracted by the beauty of the setting sun, Edon turned his attention from his crowded table to the wide window aperture gracing his hall. Sundown had come.

He noted the time somberly as he sighed deeply. Come the rising, he would have to go looking for the spies in the oak. He could not allow his authority to be challenged, not even by Warwick’s curious children, else he would not be respected in his own shire.

Sarina’s throaty growl brought Edon’s attention back to the present. At the top of the stairs stood a woman in an exquisite white gown, sheltered by the increasing shadows and a long, flowing scarlet cape. She held herself so completely still in the increasing darkness that Edon almost believed the beautiful woman was an apparition—a vision solely in his mind. He caught his breath, thinking that she could have stood there forever unnoticed by everyone in his hall.

Only Sarina inched toward her, her hackles lifting, her growl a soft warning to Edon’s sharp ears. The woman had eyes for only one thing—the wolfhound coming to the end of her leash.

Edon inhaled deeply of the charged air in his hall and discerned that curiosity was the overriding emotion exchanged between the woman and the wolfhound.