“Aye, it is,” Tala continued, gaining confidence by the moment. He was not as intimidating as she’d first believed. She lifted the gold goblet full of wine, drank its delicious contents and said clearly, “I was sent word from Winchester that Jarl Harald would be replaced by another.”
“Were you?” Edon smiled.
He would choke on that smile in a moment, Tala thought, smiling in tandem. “My cousin, King Alfred, assures me the wergild due me is to be paid in full.”
“Did he?” Edon remarked, casting not a single glance at any of the gold on his table. The silly fool mistakenly thought a wergild was paid to her. She was wrong. It was a penalty tax—paid to the king.
“Yes, it is so. I am happy to see this evidence of your wealth spread so generously on your board. Suffice it to say the wergild for hundreds of slain and captured Leamurians will beggar Warwick to redeem it. At long last Guthrum and Alfred’s treaty brings justice to my people.”
Undaunted, Edon smiled for the bold lady’s enjoyment. “I, too, am glad that you so willingly and openly expose your trump hand, Tala ap Griffin. You are not the only flea in the ear of kings. I come fresh from court with orders of my own to enforce on the land called Warwick.”
“My land,” Tala declared forcefully. “Viking land ends at Watling Street, well above the Avon. Every scrap of earth between the Severn and the river Trent belongs to the kingdom of Learn, from Weedon Bec to Loytcoyt. The rivers, the forests of Arden and Cannock and all the creatures in them are mine to harvest, not yours.
“Furthermore, I want this fortress razed and the bridge cleared of obstruction. I order my thanes and thralls released from the enslavement imposed upon them by King Guthrum’s agent, Embla Silver Throat.
“Secondly, I want your freeholders to take their cattle and their wives and concubines and children to the other side of Watling Street, where you belong. Do that and I will rescind the death warrant sworn against Embla Silver Throat by Alfred of Wessex. He is my kinsman and will listen to me.”
Edon sighed. His raised his palm, commanded her to silence. “I am here to end the bickering and enforce the peace of two kings. The disputed land known as Warwick has become a troublesome shire. Both kings wish to see their realms well peopled by men of war, men of God and men of work. They tire of women who squabble like children behind their backs.”
“Squabble like children?” Tala took exception to that odious description. “I squabble with no one. Your king claims it is a matter of law, not heredity, that proves title and ownership. To that end we Leamurians have put our efforts into drafting laws of ownership sanctioned by our king, Alfred. I do not engage in useless bickering.”
“Are you saying Embla Silver Throat does?” Edon asked.
“Embla Silver Throat engages in murder and mayhem, slaughtering any who oppose her or stand in her way.”
“How is it then that she has not slaughtered you, Tala ap Griffin?”
“Because I am never so foolish as to try to face her alone. I choose to call her to task before the court of kings.”
“But you came here to my hall—alone,” Edon reminded her.
“You assume that.”
“Very well.” Edon gave her that point. She was crafty and smart, adept in using the arts of the diplomat. Her endless petitions to Guthrum proved those facts. “May I tell you that my duty is to enforce all the terms of the Treaty of Wedmore, to which you have already referred?”
“You cannot enforce what you will not respect.” Tala’s eyes narrowed cautiously. “I will not listen to arguments that put my people at fault, when they are the victims of Embla’s vast greed and ungoverned cruelty. Every day she burns more of my forest.”
“There will be no more burning of the woodlands,” Edon said with quiet authority. “Such fires put us all at risk in times of drought. I have ordered them stopped.”
“Will you also move your people behind the agreed boundary of Watling Street?”
“That I cannot do,” Edon replied.
“Well, you shall, else there will be no end to—”
“Hear me out, Princess.” Edon stopped her tirade. “This is not an eyre. This is my supper table. Here we dine pleasantly and converse upon ideas to stimulate thought and creativity. You will save your complaints for the judgment of my court when it is convened.”
“How convenient Viking law is,” Tala replied, without holding back her scorn. “I have not risked my life coming here merely for the civility of your board.”
“You came because I commanded you to come.”
“No.” Tala assured him. “I came to state my terms and demand reparations. The sooner made, the sooner we’ll have done with one another.”
Edon very deliberately shook his head. He cast a look across the table to Rig, who had quietly returned to his seat after searching outside for the boy Edon had told him to go and look for. A jerk of Rig’s head told Edon the boy had not been found.
“Very well, lady.” Edon sighed and leaned back against the cushions of his high-backed chair. “You have given me your terms. Now I must give you the terms of two kings. Tala ap Griffin, I present to you Nels of Athelney, King Guthrum’s confessor.”
A man directly across the table from Tala rose to his feet and bowed deeply from the waist. Tala blinked at him, not certain if she had seen him before. He seemed rather familiar, dressed in a brown woolen tunic with a broadsword belted to his hips. As strong as any man at the jarl’s table, he befitted the sword.
“Princess Tala, it has been a very long time coming, but I am most pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Nels of Athelney. She was nearly a legend in King Alfred’s court—a reminder of the days of Camelot and Arthurian epic, closely tied in the minds of Alfred’s subjects to the Lady of the Lake and mystical Avalon.
“Tell the princess your purpose for being here, Bishop Nels,” Edon prompted.
“Simply put, my lord Wolf, I am charged with the duty of seeing that all persons residing in Warwickshire are baptized Christians…with a sword at their throat if necessary.”
“You may have noticed, Tala ap Griffin, that I came with soldiers enough to see that joint edict of King Guthrum and King Alfred fulfilled within the month granted us to accomplish it. My general, Rig, has already accepted the teachings of the Christ and proudly wears the cross King Guthrum has given him.”
Tala looked from the soldiers to the dangerous man seated beside her. Edon of Warwick continued speaking horrifying words.
“Once the conversions are done, I am to staunch the wounds that cut so bitterly between neighbors on the same land. As palatine of this shire, I will hold a monthly eyre to judge and settle grievances. The morning after the new moon rises, you may bring to me your petitions, which have harried two kings. I shall deal with each charge as it is proved.”
“What?” Tala gasped. “You could not possibly sit in fair judgment over my people. You jest, Viking!”
“Nay, I do not,” Edon growled, not liking her reaction one bit. She glared at him as though he was something vile and unspeakable, not a polished, educated man of the world. “Make use of your days of grace as you will, Princess. Once you find yourself charged with treason before this Viking, there will be no more skulking in trees, spying upon the unwary and conducting mischief with the waters that fuel this land.”
“What now?” Tala demanded scornfully. “Do you accuse me of witholding the rain and drying up the rivers?”
“Not I, Princess.” Edon held back a laugh at her preposterous words. Her humor was not the issue. “It is time you learned you are not the only person capable of delivering ultimatums to kings. As you have harried Alfred, Guthrum’s niece has pleaded with him for redress.”
“So?” Tala replied hotly.
Edon smiled wickedly, taking a small taste of satisfaction in her discomfort over that news. She was truly naive, a mere innocent in the ways of wielding power. He leaned deliberately closer to her, inhaling her sweet fragrance as he allowed his fingertips to stroke soothingly across the satiny skin of her bare arm.
